Live service in Call of Duty is absolutely ridiculous at this point, and Season 3 brings us to a new tier of nickel and diming that we haven’t seen before. We’re all used to the Battle Pass system in nearly every multiplayer game, but the Battle Pass in COD Modern Warfare 2 brings another layer of purchases to the pass, and the community should not be letting this go.
When Season 3 goes live on April 12, there will be a standard $10 pass and an exclusive $30 pass labeled as the BlackCell offering. What does it provide? Essentially, you get variations of all the Operators in the standard pass that are actually worth buying and additional exclusive content like Finishers or Blueprints. I’ve already seen many of the reactions to this. “You don’t have to buy it,” or “It’s not that much more.”
An exclusive Battle Pass inside the already paid pass is getting out of hand, and it won’t stop here. Taking into account how the previous seasons have gone, there is no excuse for this, and the community should not accept what could set an unbelievable precedent going forward.
COD MW2 Players are Getting Ripped Off – BlackCell Should be Standard
Some of the community will be quick to point out that the Standard pass still exists for $10. We don’t have to buy the BlackCell version if we don’t want to. It’s just extra cosmetics, right?
Only in a perfect world does that paint the full picture. Compared to the past three Call of Duty games, the Battle Passes have been incredibly weak. The Operators have basic changes, and the Tier 100 skin from Season 1 was barely discernable from a normal unlock. Don’t even get me started on the blueprints either, which are mostly just black recolors of weapons. Look back at Vanguard or Black Ops Cold War and tell me that the $10 Battle Pass quality is the same.
Now, look at other games as well. Fortnite Battle Passes offer a plethora of great content, with secret crossover skins and plenty of Mastery skins to unlock as well. It’s the same exact price, and there are no additional fees. When you’re asking for $10 from most of your players every season, those cosmetics better be worth the money and the time to grind.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has decided to step up its game for Battle Pass content quality. According to recent descriptions, many of the BlackCell variations will be animated. Only now, you have to pay an extra $20 on top of the normal price to get the quality we have already expected for the last three years. Anyone arguing for why this makes sense is playing into the gradual downgrading of quality content that somehow is tripled in price.
The COD MW2 Season 3 Battle Pass Could Have Major Implications
To me, this new implementation looks like a test. How much money can Activision pull from its player base before the Call of Duty game releases later in the year? To go even further, if they sell enough of the BlackCell passes, what’s to stop them from making $30 seem like a normal price point? When enough of the community buys into this nonsense, of course, Activision will be encouraged to continue raising the stakes.
I’ve seen some of the COD MW2 community point out that the BlackCell offering is more than just variations. The pass also gives players some Tier skips and 1,100 additional COD Points. Great! Now I have half of the COD Points I need to purchase one of the 2,400 point bundles in the store. And $10 of that $20 price jump is still unexplained. Good variations of skins from the Standard Battle Pass are not an excuse. Animated or quality Blueprints and skins used to be the norm.
Related: Great… COD MW2’s Battle Pass Just Got Even More Expensive
Look at the free content we’re getting as well. Tons of the content is being ripped from the Al Mazrah map and sectioned off into a 6v6 map or a Battle Map. There’s only been one new map since the launch of Season 1. Some of the new weapons have been fun to use, but the rest of the content does not constitute a $30 price point for a Battle Pass every two months.
Of course, plenty of players either won’t care or will make an excuse for why it’s definitely worth more than the standard $10 Battle Pass. Even I fall for the constant microtransactions in COD MW2, so I have a hand in the system as well. But there has to be a line drawn somewhere, right? Or we can continue buying up these ridiculous offerings and continue to complain when the developers don’t listen to any of the community requests.
Who am I kidding? I’ll probably see all the same players in the next COD after we spend $100 just to reach Season 1 in 2023.
That is all! For more on the Call of Duty title, head over to our dedicated Modern Warfare 2 section full of guides, news, updates, and more.
