Black Ops 6 & Warzone Jan 31 update patch notes: XM4 nerf, PPSh-41 buff, more

❘ Published: 2025-01-31T18:59:57

Activision

The latest Black Ops 6 and Warzone update makes highly requested weapon balancing changes, clarifies how cross-play works in Ranked Play, and fixes a few troublesome glitches.

Instead of waiting for early next week like fans initially anticipated, Raven Software went ahead and nerfed the XM4 and buffed the PPSh-41 ahead of the weekend.

Meanwhile, to avoid any confusion about the new cross-play changes in Ranked Play, Treyarch further clarified how the new feature works. In addition, BO6 fixed the split-screen glitch that prevented the feature from working as intended.

As for Zombies, Tomb suffered from its fair share of hiccups at launch, so this update improves the overall experience by ironing out some of those issues.

Let’s jump right into what changed.

Black Ops 6 & Warzone Jan 31 update patch notes

Join on Friends

Addressed an issue that prevented players from joining their friend’s party due to an error that stated they were on a different version.

Split Screen

Addressed an issue that immediately kicked Player 2 when attempting to enable Split Screen.

Ranked Cross-Play

Players in a party who all belong to the same console platform will matchmake with the party leader’s preferred cross-play settings.
Players who have selected “Cross-Play Off” and create a mixed platform party that includes a different console platform will have their cross-play settings temporarily adjusted to “Cross-Play On (Consoles Only)” to enable matchmaking. This temporary adjustment enables matchmaking for the duration of the mixed platform party, and disbanding this party will result in preferred matchmaking settings being restored.
Players who have selected “Cross-Play Off” and create a mixed platform party with a PC player will have their cross-play settings temporarily adjusted to “Cross-Play On.” This enables matchmaking for the duration of the mixed platform party, and disbanding this party will result in preferred matchmaking settings being restored.
Reminder: Adjusting Cross-Play settings may negatively impact matchmaking queue times.

Known Issue

We are investigating an issue where “Cross-Play On (Consoles Only) and “Cross-Play Off” settings are being reset when relaunching Call of Duty.

UI

Addressed an issue where Prestige Challenges were not populating the nearest to completion list on the Challenge Tracker.
Addressed an issue where some players would see the Prestige Master splash in the AAR after every match.
Addressed an issue that prevented tiers from being displayed on the Challenge Tracker.
Addressed an issue pinned challenges on the Challenge Tracker were not displaying correctly.
Addressed an issue where XP Earned and BlackCell XP bonus were flipped in the AAR.
Addressed an issue where the Challenge Tracker would not automatically cycle to the next page after 8 seconds.

Weapons

Improved muzzle flash visibility on all SMGs when aiming down sights.

Characters

Addressed an issue where Weaver’s “Nacht Raider” Skin would have an extra skull in the Operator Selection menu.

Multiplayer

Modes

Hardcore
- Enabled spawn protection in Hardcore modes.

Leaderboards

Added a filter to Multiplayer leaderboards to toggle between Core and Hardcore. (Added Jan. 29)

Challenges

Addressed an issue that prevented the “Flowing Low” challenge from tracking progress. (Added Jan. 28)

Zombies

Maps

The Tomb
- Addressed an issue that would prevent players from interacting with the Sentinel Artifact to start the Final Encounter. (Added Jan. 29).
- Addressed a crash that would occur when using a Shock Charge in the Dark Aether Nexus during the Wonder Weapon Quest. (Added Jan. 28)
- Addressed an issue where dropping the upgraded Staff of Ice then letting it respawn could remove the upgrade.
- Addressed an issue where zombies were not awarding full points during the Final Encounter.
- Addressed a rare issue where some zombies couldn’t be damaged after the final step of the Wonder Weapon Quest.
- Addressed an issue where a player wouldn’t be teleported to the Final Encounter if they were interacting with one of the portals in the Dark Aether Nexus.
- Addressed an issue that allowed players to trigger Scorestreaks during the Blood Sacrifice step of a side Easter Egg.
- Addressed an issue where interacting with the Amulet more than once would cause the sound effects and audio to play multiple times.
- Addressed an issue where a Staff of Ice from the Mystery Box could not be interacted with if it was swapped out for the one built during the Wonder Weapon Quest.
Terminus
- Directed
  - Addressed an issue where Objective markers would not appear for some players when loading a save.

Leaderboards

Added a filter to Zombies leaderboards to toggle between Solo and Squads. (Added Jan. 28)

UI

Corrected typos.
Addressed an issue where setting a different HUD preset in Zombies would prevent any further changes and cause low FPS in-game.

Graphics

Addressed some graphical issues that could occur when using the “Null” Blueprint for the AK-74.

Stability

Addressed an issue that resulted in frequent stability issues on The Tomb for players with AMD GPUs at launch.
Various stability fixes.

Warzone

General

Buy Station locations across Urzikstan have been updated.
Tracker is now properly unrestricted in Ranked Play.
The LTV Vehicle has been disabled while we investigate an issue.

Weapon buffs & nerfs

XM4

Attribute	Pre-patch	Post-patch
Maximum Damage Range	Damage: 29 Range: 0-34.2 meters	Damage: 27 Range: 0-34.2 meters
Medium Damage Range 1	Damage: 26 Range: 43.2-48.2 meters	Damage: 24 Range: 34.2-48.2 meters

Additional adjustments

100 Round Mag
Buffer Stock
- New: Sprint to Fire penalty 15%
- Aim Down Sight speed penalty increased from 23% to 31%
- Horizontal Recoil Control bonus decreased from 45% to 30%
- Vertical Recoil Control bonus decreased from 18% to 12%
- Gunkick Control bonus decreased from 20% to 15%

Jackal PDW

Aim Down Sight speed slowed from 195 to 210ms
Sprint to Fire time slowed from 110ms to 120ms

PPSh-41

Attribute	Pre-patch	Post-patch
Maximum Damage Range	Damage: 28 Range: 0-11.9 meters	Damage: 28 Range: 0-15.5 meters
Medium Damage Range 1	Damage: 24 Range: 11.9-21 meters	Damage: 25 Range: 15.5-24.8 meters
Medium Damage Range 2	Damage: 20 Range: 21-29.7 meters	Damage: 20 Range: 24.8-29.7 meters