Warzone’s new sniper rifle already nerfed before it even went live

A new update is now live in Call of Duty, pre-empting the potential dominance of the game’s newest weapon that is now unlockable.

The AMR Mod 4 sniper rifle is the latest weapon to join the game’s roster, and the first new sniper since launch. And judging by the sound of it, it’s likely to become a top pick, especially in Warzone where it’s already been tweaked before launching.

“Down enemies fast with this powerful sniper rifle providing a one-shot elimination across the upper body not accounting for armor,” Activision said. “Its high damage is balanced by slow aim speed and heavy recoil, though these drawbacks can be alleviated with the right attachments. However you customize it, this thing is guaranteed to hit hard.”

And hit hard it does, indeed. With this in mind, here’s the rest of today’s Warzone patch notes.

Warzone patch notes today: Dec. 19

Black Ops 6 and Warzone’s newest weapon, the AMR Mod 4 sniper rifle, is available now to unlock as part of the Archie’s Festival Frenzy event. But as such, it’s already had one of the best possible attachments taken away from it to prevent it from becoming too powerful.

The AMR Mod 4’s CHF Barrel attachment has been disabled, and with good reason. The barrel is available across a variety of guns in the game and provides a buff to headshot damage on any gun it’s used with. Because of this, Raven Software thinks it better to keep it off the new gun entirely.

The CHF Barrel likely would have turned the new sniper rifle, reminiscent of the Barret .50 Cal from past CoD games, into a one-shot headshot machine regardless of armor in Battle Royale and Resurgence, thus quickly making it a problem—especially considering it’s semi-auto.

After playing a bit with the weapon already, it does feel quite strong, so I think disabling the headshot modifier is the way to go for this gun. Otherwise, gunfights in Warzone would likely disappear in favor of instantly being downed by snipers.

Other weapon changes include the removal of other restrictions, including the Akimbo Saug SMG, and the COR 45 pistol. Both will now be available in the game as part of the update.

Warzone’s much-discussed audio has also been changed in the update. Raven Software says that it’s increased the volume of enemy footsteps, decreased the volume of first-person player footsteps, and “reduced environmental reverb effects across all player, friendly and enemy footsteps.”

Players often complain about how enemies somehow sneak up on them in Warzone thanks to no footstep audio, so hopefully this change will level the playing field against players who like to sprint around with reckess abandon.

For the full patch notes for today’s Warzone update, visit the CoD website.