‘So f*****g goofy’: CoD fans demand ability to skip ‘cringe’ end-of-game feature

Losing a game of Call of Duty is humiliating, but sitting through a short game-winning kill cam before returning to the main menu was quick enough that it didn’t matter too much. In Black Ops 6, however, Treyarch has brought back the Winner’s Circle—and players are already over it.

CoD players lucky enough to crack the early access beta for Black Ops 6 this week are crying foul over the annoyance that is the Winner’s Circle, which shows off the top three players from the previous match after the final kill cam. During this time you can’t leave the game and get to the main menu, so you’re stuck sitting through seeing the enemy’s awful player skins and emotes.

A clip was shared on the Black Ops 6 subreddit on Aug. 31 that sees the three members in the Winner’s Circle spamming emotes and canceling the animation midway each time. The Winner’s Circle doesn’t even display stats or information about the previous game, meaning it’s little more than a chance for top players to show off their already tough-to-see operator skins with janky emote animations. “The Winner’s Circle is so fucking goofy, please let me skip this shit,” the post’s author said.

The worst thing about it is just how long it lasts, with players forced to wait almost 20 seconds locked into the end-of-round lobby instead of just queuing up for another game. “I’d rather stare at a blank screen than this cringe-fest,” another player said. “[I] hated the Winner’s Circle in Black Ops 3 and now they bring it back—who the fuck asked for this shit?”

One player went so far as to suggest you leave the game early to avoid the Winner’s Circle altogether, while other fans of the feature made their stance clear, believing the animation-canceling emotes to be hilarious. Most did agree on one thing, though: “It’s so jarringly long, I just wanna get into a new match,” the post’s author concluded.

It’s obviously a ploy to encourage players to take a trip to the CoD Store for a fresh, new operator skin, so it certainly won’t be going anywhere in a hurry. Personally, I just want to be able to change up my loadout while sitting through the Winner’s Circle—is that too much to ask, Activision?

We’ll see if the Winner’s Circle gets a tweak when Black Ops 6 officially launches in October.