Warzone players think the nerfed DMR is still OP

Warzone
(Image credit: Activision)

A chunk of the enormous Call of Duty: Warzone playerbase has been having a very normal start to the new year, by which I mean going absolutely crackers over a gun called the DMR. It's a powerful scoped rifle with a high rate of fire, and can take players down with quickfire body shots from considerable distance, so everyone's rocking one in their loadouts to such an extent some joke we're playing DMRzone. Yesterday came the news that developer Raven Software had patched the DMR and a few other much-maligned weapons. The rejoicing lasted a few hours, before players started to opine that the new DMR... is kinda still the old DMR.

It's worth pausing to say that this is not strictly true. The patch substantially reduced the DMR's damage and Raven says the gun's recoil has also been tweaked (many players claim this s not noticeable, and some even say it's improved). Warzone streamer JGod worked out the precise values of the drop-off, showing the gun's headshot damage has dropped by around a third.

This is of course the balance Raven has to find, damping-down the DMR's excesses while keeping the gun viable. As the replies to the developer's tweet announcing the patch show, folk don't think this nerf has done the job and are not very polite about it.

The Warzone community on reddit has collapsed into recriminations, memes, and slightly overblown videos about how ridiculous the gun remains.

Time to capitalize on the latest bullshit from r/CODWarzone

The DMR clearly remains a powerful weapon and, should you wish to find players claiming they're beinig slaughtered by armies of DMR drones, you will find them. Whether that's proof that Raven got the change wrong is another question, though the problems with overpowered guns do seem almost predictable in the light of 30 new weapons from Cold War's arsenal being added to Warzone all at once. At the same time, the Warzone community tends to get over-excited when it senses potential catastrophe, and it may be that after a few days in the wild the current excitement over the DMR will die down. If it doesn't then, well: if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Rich Stanton

Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."