Warzone players angry with “pay to win” Modern Warfare sniper blueprint

Connor Bennett
Warzone player looking down a sniper

A number of Call of Duty: Warzone players have hit out at another “pay to win” weapon after noticing that an HDR sniper blueprint lets players see a whole lot more while zoomed in. 

As Warzone has continued to surge in popularity, the developers have kept the battle royale filled with new content in the form of new weapons, cosmetics, and game modes. 

However, there have been plenty of issues with items that come from the in-game item shop. Players have complained that certain blueprints actually give weapons a damage boost compared to their base version, while some skins have let users literally go invisible at long-range. 

With the switch to Black Ops Cold War weapons, some of the Modern Warfare items have taken a backseat, but players have reignited an argument around a HDR blueprint being “pay to win.”

The Oceanographer blueprint in Warzone
The Oceanographer blueprint is from Modern Warfare, but its been causing issues.

The Blueprint in question is the Oceanographer for the HDR sniper. The bright skin isn’t the issue, but rather the variable zoom scope that is on the rifle.

As Reddit user aur0n shows, compared to the stock HDR, the scope doesn’t blackout the area around where the player is zooming in. Instead, it shows everything that’s there.

It’s not quite an aimbot-like advantage, of course, but it does allow players to get a better read on what’s around them. For example, if an enemy sneaks up on a player using the stock scope, they might not be able to see them. Whereas, with the Oceanographer blueprint, they could. 

“I know it’s not as broken as the MAC-10 with increased base stats like we had some weeks ago, but I still find it unfair that people who shopped the HDR in the store have a better weapon (with peripheral vision) than others that don’t want to spend money on it,” the Redditor added. 

“This has always been an issue and gave up complaining about it. The black peripheral is a huge downside compared to the blueprint,” another noted. 

Given that it’s a Modern Warfare weapon, and the blueprint is slightly old at this point, it’s unknown if a change will be made. We’ll just have to wait and see.