Call of Duty: Warzone has been severely degrading in terms of performance and gameplay experience, forcing players to rally and demand publisher Activision for much-needed updates. It hence becomes all the more important to remind the community that developers responsible for improving the state of the game have actually been on strike for nearly two months now.
According to a report by The Washington Post earlier today, several quality assurance testers of developer Raven Software have been on strike for more than seven weeks now. These staffers are responsible for squashing bugs and glitches in Warzone as well as other Call of Duty games. However, their demands are not being met by Activision. The publisher has been maintaining a no-negotiation policy, contributing to the current state of the game.
Activision laid off a dozen of its quality assurance testers before the holiday season, leading to more than 200 staffers walking out in protest on December 7, 2021, including those of Raven Software. They are demanding for the layoffs to be reversed and for quality assurance testers to given full-time positions. Activision has made no step to negotiate but has warned its workers “to consider the consequences” of signing union authorization cards.
Last week, Activision acknowledged the worrying state of Warzone as well as Vanguard and Modern Warfare. The publisher assured that its “teams are hard at work addressing the issues that are being experienced” while highlighting some of the more prominent issues being prioritized right now.
They most importantly include the deteriorating performance on both PlayStation and Xbox consoles, certain skins that allow players to become invisible, and Buy Stations which cause players to freeze while gaining access.
The recent Pacific update proved to be a nightmare for Warzone, particularly on consoles. The game has been deemed broken on Xbox as most players are finding it difficult to even launch let alone enter a match. There are bugs and glitches scattered across platforms, ranging from invisible skins to cosmetic pops to frame-stutters to random crashes to connection woes.
It remains to be seen how an understaffed Raven Software will be able to streamline the current state of Call of Duty: Warzone in the coming months.
