Warzone community outraged with “recycled” event rewards

Warzone 2 recently launched the new Faction Showdown community event offering free rewards, but some players are outraged after noticing that one of the rewards bears a striking resemblance to an in-game store blueprint.

Season 5 of Warzone 2 has arrived, bringing with it a plethora of content for players to unlock. From new Operators and a wide array of weapons to long-awaited movement changes, weapon buffs and nerfs, and much more.

This season also introduced a new community event called Faction Showdown to allow players to unlock additional rewards for free by completing a list of in-game challenges.

After completing the required challenges, several players noted that one of the rewards is extremely similar to a previously available paid weapon blueprint from the in-game store.

Lately, Call of Duty has been involved in several controversies that led the community to react, such as the “pay to win” pet feature, the cats and rappers Operator skins, and the introduction of a “pay to win” optic, among others.

The new Faction Showdown event offers players the chance to earn exclusive rewards… or so they believed. After the event launched, some players quickly realized that the reward blueprint obtained after completing all the challenges for Shadow Company was actually a previously included item from a paid store bundle.

The Shadow Company event reward is the same blueprint that was part of a previously released bundle. pic.twitter.com/OJqjjeP50S

— CharlieIntel (@charlieINTEL) August 5, 2023

Responding to a CharlieIntel tweet raising the issue, some players wondered “Is it that hard to make NEW content?,” expressing their discontent with the reuse of content in the game, with other comments adding: “Recycling old content again smh.”

Some players chose to approach the situation with humor, albeit mixed with disappointment, saying devs preferred to “downgrade” the blueprint skin from a paid bundle to a simple free event reward because it “didn’t sell well enough,” while others added they thought that players won’t “realize its the same.”

While Activision have not commented on the issue, players are hopeful an update or change to the blueprint could arrive. However, considering past situations, it may be challenging for such changes to occur.

For more on Warzone 2, be sure to check out our other pieces on why players are convinced aim assist was secretly nerfed or why Warzone players are frustrated as Orion camo is disabled in Season 5.