Call of Duty revealed its next special guest operator skin in a teaser video today, and some of the game’s players are already speaking out against it in droves.
NBA star Kevin Durant is the latest in CoD’s recent line of operator skin partnerships, coming sometime this month as part of an operator bundle in Modern Warfare 2, Warzone 2, and CoD Mobile. He’ll join Shredder from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and soccer players Messi, Neymar, and Pogba as operators in MW2.
Not long after the May 2 announcement, CoD fans took to Reddit to voice their opinions on the special skin. And to say that many don’t seem too excited about playing as the Phoenix Suns scoring superstar would be putting it lightly.
“I know it’s all subjective but yikes,” said one commenter. “Even the crossovers are shit in MW2.“
Many fans were quick to compare the Durant skin to something that would appear in a game like Fortnite, which has partnerships with just about any IP you can imagine, including professional athletes.
“The blatant Fortnite chasing is just awful,” another commenter said. “If I wanna play Fortnite I can and will, but if I wanna play something more grounded in reality, well, I can’t [because] this is just giant bunnies and anime guns.”
CoD’s operator skins and weapon blueprints always start out reasonably realistic when the game first launches, and then seem to get increasingly more farfetched and silly as the year goes on.
And the message from some players is clear: Durant and out-of-place skins like him are not what they are looking for. The Shredder skin seemed to be more of a popular addition, but time will tell how many Durantula twins will be running around Al Mazrah.
“Is CoD a soccer/basketball-themed game now?” another commenter replied. “They need to do less cash grabbing and make a damn game.”
Related: Infinity Ward confirms DMZ’s Building 21 still free-to-play, fix incoming
It’s unclear when Durant will be making his debut in CoD, but it should come sometime after the Season Three Reloaded update, which should land on May 17.
