Slept-on Cold War AR is meta again after Warzone Season 5 Reloaded buff

Warzone’s Season 5 Reloaded update has brought about some big changes to the weapon pool, and has even made a classic Black Ops Cold War rifle meta once again.

The Season 5 Reloaded update for Warzone is the final big shake-up that the battle royale will receive before the launch of Warzone 2.0 – which is set to come in November.

With players looking to give the second Call of Duty BR a pretty big send-off, they’ve been revisiting some classic weapons and loadouts. The likes of the Grau, M4, and XM4 have all shot up the pick rate charts over the last few weeks, but the meta is still dominated by weapons from Vanguard.

However, the older weapons are still pretty viable, and that includes the QBZ from Black Ops Cold War. While its pick rate hasn’t exactly skyrocketed, some experts are still giving it the nod as being useful.

Cold War’s QBZ is meta again in Warzone Season 5 Reloaded

That includes Warzone YouTuber WhosImmortal, who highlighted the weapon during his updated meta tier list video following the Season 5 Reloaded update as the QBZ received a slight buff.

“The QBZ, I’ve been back-and-forth with for a while because it’s always had a very consistent TTK and, for a while, I had it in the top meta category because it’s so similar to the XM4 which is a top tier gun,” the YouTuber said.

“They ended up buffing the QBZ with damage multipliers as well. I feel like it deserves a spot back up in here with the XM4. These two weapons are so similar in so many ways. QBZ, great TTK, XM4 has a little easier recoil. When it comes down to it, those two are right there with one another.”

Timestamp of 2:55

As noted, the buff hasn’t exactly made every player sit up and take notice of the QBZ. As per WZRanked stats, it still only has a 0.27 pick rate, but it clearly is viable.

Who knows if we’ll see it used a bit more across Caldera, Fortune’s Keep, and Rebirth Island before the launch of Warzone 2.0, but it’s worth trying for a least a few games.