20 Call of Duty Guns That Were Accidentally Broken at Launch

I'm not convinced that Call of Duty developers ever make guns broken on purpose. I know sometimes we joke about it, but I don't think it actually happens. Although sometimes it can really feel like it was intentional.

The FAMAS in Black Ops 1 had the best time to kill in the game by accident

Take a look at the FAMAS in Black Ops 1. It had a smoking fire rate and only needed three to four shots to kill no matter what, giving it the best time to kill in the game. I think Treyarch was intending for the recoil, that perfectly vertical kick, to be the main balancing mechanic, but it wasn't nearly enough to make up for the FAMAS's stats.

It was basically the only gun you ever saw online, and even in the PS5 port of Black Ops 1 right now, the FAMAS is still by far the most popular gun in the game because it's easy mode.

The AK74U in Black Ops 1 completely invalidated every other SMG

If you weren't using the FAMAS in Black Ops 1, you were probably using the AK74U, the SMG that made every other option feel pointless. To its credit, the other SMGs in that game, the Spectre, the Kiparis, the Uzi, were some of the worst ever, but the AK74U had the power of a full size AK-47 with the mobility of an SMG. I don't think Treyarch intended for it to be quite this strong. Frankly, I think it's a comparison thing, the AK74U is strong on its own, but what made it so broken to me was that everything else in its class sucked. This is the epitome of a no brainer type of weapon.

The M16 in COD 4 was the first burst rifle to break the game

The M16 in COD 4 was the first burst rifle in Call of Duty history, and it was way too good. I definitely don't think Infinity Ward made it like this on purpose, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. The three round burst instantly killed thanks to the two shot kill range and a ridiculous burst fire rate, with no recoil and one of the dumbest noob tube attachments in franchise history.

That was experimental time, which is what we always say about COD 4 when we're criticizing it, but some of those things replaced Call of Duty history. As much as I like to give Infinity Ward grace for this being their first modern COD game, because I don't give them a lot of grace in the current state of things, I do wish the M16 had been patched in some way, because it really did kill the variety of the game.

The akimbo shotguns in Modern Warfare 2 had near infinite range

Speaking of killing the variety of a game, Modern Warfare 2 was crazy, almost everything was overpowered. There were some pointless guns too, the USP45, the F2000, but one gun that was actually better than it was supposed to be was the shotgun you could run akimbo in that game. I'm not kidding when I say these things had near infinite range when the game first launched.

This is one of the very few things in Modern Warfare 2 that actually got patched, because it was so seriously obviously not supposed to be that way. The single version of that shotgun was pretty good on its own, powerful, but the akimbo version broke a game that had shipped broken in the first place.

The SPR 208 became a hit scan killing machine in Warzone

The SPR 208 is the bolt action marksman rifle that launched with a serious bug making it a hit scan weapon. On smaller maps in standard 6v6, that wasn't a huge deal, but in Warzone it was straight up game breaking. All you had to do was point, click, point, click, and enemies were dead. It turned what was a decent bolt action weapon into a top tier killing machine by removing a massive part of the skill gap.

The hit scan conversion attachments were patched out because they obviously weren't supposed to be there on purpose, but the hit scan SPR era of Modern Warfare 2019 in Warzone was crazy. People were making 300 meter shots left and right.

The FMG9 in Modern Warfare 3 was nearly unbeatable in akimbo form

You could say the FMG9 in Modern Warfare 3 was busted on purpose, because how could you not see the issues right out of the gate. But given that it was actually nerfed and never brought back, I don't think it was intentional. The FMG9 would instantly kill you if you were up against an akimbo user, with a magazine of 36 rounds by default.

Run in akimbo and you had 72 rounds to burn through at over a thousand rounds per minute, and you only needed three bullets to connect to kill somebody. Spoiler alert, the time to kill was literally unbeatable.

The Striker shotgun in Modern Warfare 3 took a 33 percent damage nerf

Along similar lines, the Striker semi automatic shotgun in Modern Warfare 3 had ridiculous ammo capacity, a very high fire rate, and yet it still carried an absurd one shot kill range when the game first dropped. People were running around the map spamming the trigger and getting insta kills from mid range. It ended up getting hit with one of the biggest nerfs in COD history a few weeks after launch, I believe it was a 33 percent damage reduction across the board.

It's still annoying to this day, but the original version fits the bill of being accidentally broken. There's no way this gun was supposed to be this good, it was an oversight that I think slipped through the cracks during the hectic development cycle that was Modern Warfare 3.

The MSBS in Ghosts had a near instant kill time before a fast nerf

I'm not entirely sure how Infinity Ward let the MSBS in Ghosts ship the way it did. It was nerfed fast, and I'm 100 percent confident it was an accident, one of the fastest nerfs in COD history. The only way you experienced it was if you were playing Ghosts in the first week. It was a three round burst rifle, basically the COD 4 M16 but with more attachments and perks, and it only needed two shots to kill with zero recoil and a nuts fire rate.

To Infinity Ward's credit, they came down hard on it, arguably too far. It went from a god gun to a gone gun, nobody used it again online after that first week.

An AS Val attachment let players shoot through walls in Modern Warfare 2019

The AS Val became an iconic assault rifle in games like Battlefield, but when it was added to Modern Warfare 2019 as DLC it made headlines for the wrong reasons. An attachment turned it into a semi auto marksman rifle that would also, for whatever reason, ignore all walls and set pieces. You could cross map the other team through infinite walls. The winning strategy was firing snapshot grenades across the map to see where everyone was, then unloading through the walls until the enemy team was dead.

Obviously this wasn't on purpose, and Infinity Ward patched it up pretty quickly. But watching the footage back and thinking about how something like this made it into the public's hands makes me wonder what the play testers were actually doing.

The Bal-27 in Advanced Warfare stayed dominant despite being a default unlock

Starting weapons should never be this broken, but the Bal-27 was and still is the best gun in Advanced Warfare despite being a default unlock. Fire rate was good, recoil was low, the iron sights were amazing, and several weapon variants gave it an amazing three shot kill range in basically any scenario.

Sledgehammer seemingly didn't mean for it to be this powerful, but I question why they didn't fully nerf it for the entire Advanced Warfare life cycle. They nerfed it once or twice, but never went nearly far enough to take it off the top of the tier list, so what was the point.

The STG-44 in Vanguard kept spawning new broken builds after every patch

I think it's safe to say a starting assault rifle is never supposed to be busted, because then there's nothing to grind toward. But Sledgehammer made the starting AR in Vanguard, the STG-44, completely broken. This was actually kind of funny, because the base stats weren't busted, but the gunsmith builds were, and since the game had 10 attachment slots, every time one busted build got patched a new one popped up a week later like a new weed in a garden, or a pimple.

They had to keep popping those pimples on the STG-44 until it eventually became relatively balanced. It was very busted for the longest time, and very obviously not on purpose, because Sledgehammer just kept pushing out patches as if those band aids would fix the problem.

The MV4 in Infinite Warfare was broken simply because it was too easy to use

The MV4 in Infinite Warfare was busted, but not because of overpowered stats. It was the easiest gun in the game to use, and it completely contradicted the design of an experience built around crazy movement and ridiculous abilities. As your starting assault rifle, it just pointed, shot, and killed the enemy in four to five shots no matter the situation.

Infinity Ward never felt the need to patch it, so it remained the most spammed gun in the game for as long as anyone was playing. It was overpowered without actually being overpowered, which is kind of new.

The MP7 in Modern Warfare 3 combined LMG damage with SMG handling

The MP7 in Modern Warfare 3 is one of the best late unlock guns in COD history in my opinion. It had the damage of an LMG in the body of an SMG. It fired at something like 900 rounds per minute, killed in three to four shots in any scenario, had some of the best iron sights in franchise history, zero recoil, and a default magazine of 40 rounds.

I still don't know what was keeping Sledgehammer and Infinity Ward from patching this later in the game's life cycle, especially since we already know the Striker shotgun got nerfed. Why didn't the MP7 get touched, and why didn't the ACR ever get an adjustment either? They were left alone despite being totally broken, and I don't necessarily understand why.

The MP9 secondary in Modern Warfare 3 outclassed half the primary SMGs

Staying in Modern Warfare 3, the MP9 machine pistol was basically an SMG that outclassed half the SMGs in the game despite fitting in your back pocket as a secondary. I'm still not sure how it got through play testing. It fired at 900 rounds per minute with a 32 round magazine, no recoil, and killed reliably in three to five shots.

I'm convinced that if Modern Warfare 3 hadn't been rushed through development, the MP9 would have been a primary weapon. Since the game was rushed, they must have needed another gun to fill that secondary slot, and they put the MP9 down there as if there was nothing wrong with that.

The Groza 5.56 turned into a laser beam once it hit Warzone

The Groza 5.56, meant to be a competitor to the M4, looked pretty basic on the surface with moderate fire rate, good accuracy, and consistent damage. But when it jumped over to Warzone, it became unbeatable, a laser beam with incredible range and one of the best times to kill in the game at mid and long range. It got to a point where people started dropping their sniper rifles for the Groza because it was more consistent at long range, which is a wild thing to say.

It was eventually patched to be less dominant, but if you were playing Warzone during the Groza era, you remember how crazy this thing was. Where were the play testers on this one? Maybe it's a conspiracy.

A random early 2021 pistol update in Modern Warfare 2019 broke a secondary weapon

Some people insist a pistol added to Modern Warfare 2019 through a random update in early 2021 was broken on purpose as a way to revitalize the game, but given how quickly Infinity Ward swooped in and patched it, I don't know if I believe that. It was pretty basic on its own, but a few attachments made it completely broken: a full auto mod, an 80 round drum mag, and an akimbo option.

Bundle all of that together and you had a completely broken secondary that was literally unbeatable up to mid range. Infinity Ward patched it super fast, so I'm not necessarily convinced it was on purpose, as suspicious as it looked for this random broken handgun to show up long after the Modern Warfare season had ended. Who gives a pistol a full auto mod and an 80 round drum mag?

The BAR in Call of Duty: WWII got an emergency nerf six days after launch

The BAR, the final assault rifle you unlocked in Call of Duty: WWII, got hit with one of the fastest nerfs in COD history, which tells me right away it wasn't supposed to be as good as it was. WWII was rushed really rapidly through development, so a lot of things got overlooked, and the BAR was one of them. It had a stupid three shot kill range, a high fire rate, and no recoil.

If you were somehow able to play through the server issues and crashes of that first week and actually grind out the BAR, you were untouchable. Sledgehammer hit it with an emergency nerf six days after the game came out, and while it was obviously the right call, it was annoying for people who had finally ground through all those issues only to have the reward cut out from under them.

A sniper shotgun hybrid weapon in Infinite Warfare had a built in aimbot in shotgun mode

This sniper shotgun hybrid weapon in Infinite Warfare was only in the game for a few hours before being removed while Infinity Ward figured out what had happened. In shotgun mode, there was something wrong with the coding, it had perfect accuracy, meaning the pellets would magically make their way to anyone on your screen regardless of how much or how little they were actually in your hip fire spread. It was essentially an aimbot built into a shotgun.

On hardcore game modes, the minimum damage was enough to instantly kill whoever you touched from any distance. People were loading into hardcore lobbies and flying around cross mapping people with this weapon in hand. Infinity Ward deleted the gun from the game after a few hours to patch it, but I have no idea how something like this shipped out the door. Did anybody actually play test it?

The MAC-10 dominated Warzone while Raven Software was away for the holidays

When the Black Ops Cold War update first went live in the original Warzone, we had problems. Raven Software infamously didn't have time to actually test the Black Ops guns being added to the game, and then staff left the office for the holidays right after putting the update out, leaving nobody at headquarters to fix the broken MAC-10 submachine gun. The fire rate was crazy, there was no recoil, the damage profile was through the roof, and it had a near instant time to kill regardless of how much armor you were wearing.

The entire close range and mid range meta was the MAC-10, and it could even compete at long range against dedicated long range guns. With nobody in the office to patch it while everyone was home for the holidays, the MAC-10 dominated Warzone for the first several weeks in late 2020 and into early 2021.

The DMR14 was so dominant that people uninstalled Warzone until it was patched

The DMR14, the semi auto rifle added in that same Black Ops Cold War update, was infamously not tested, and it had an even bigger negative impact on the game than the MAC-10. It would kill basically anyone from basically any distance in two to three shots despite having a very high fire rate and no recoil. The entire game turned into a DMR14 spam content, and whoever got their loadout drop first would win the match because they would have their DMR before anyone else.

People were literally quitting Warzone in droves and uninstalling it, freeing up space to play other games until Raven Software could get back to the office and patch the DMR, because the game was borderline unplayable. With how obviously broken it was, I think we all know it wasn't broken on purpose, wink wink. But this one will live on in the memories of old heads like myself, in what I'd describe as an absolutely bananas era of Call of Duty.

Those are 20 guns that I'm going to lean toward trusting were accidentally broken when they shipped. Do you agree, or do you think any of these were broken on purpose?