Call of Duty’s “broken” LA Thieves team pack hits #11 on Steam’s best seller list

by Danny Craig  ·  Updated 
Call of Duty’s “broken” LA Thieves team pack hits #11 on Steam’s best seller list
Activision

On November 29, Activision released cosmetic team packs for the 12 teams competing in its Call of Duty League, but community members are concerned there might be a glaring issue with part of LA Thieves’ kit.

The details:

  • Team bundles for the Call of Duty League (CDL) teams were added to Modern Warfare II and Warzone 2.0 on Tuesday this week. Each pack includes home and away skins in a specific team’s colors, a universally applicable camo, a large logo decal, and a weapon sticker featuring the team's logo.
  • When the bundles were first revealed, players spotted that, whilst the other teams were sporting their signature colors, Los Angeles Thieves (LAT) were rocking an all-black home skin. This immediately rang alarm bells for those of us who had experienced the ‘Rook’ skin for Roze in the original Warzone, which was an all-black battle pass skin that had the unintended benefit of making its wearer hard to see in low-light areas.
  • Once the team packs arrived in-game, LAT’s shot to a peak of 11th place on the global Steam sales chart, while the 11 other organizations—including fan favorite OpTic Texas—failed to even break the top 100.

So...is it broken?

  • Although the outrage online may make the skin seem OP, we haven’t seen any examples of players using the all-black outfit to stay hidden from enemies, which is where the concern stems from.
  • People have been quick to point out that dark clothing is much less of a boon in Warzone 2.0 compared to the original Warzone. In 2.0, players compete in the Al Mazrah map, which consists of sand-colored scenery and bright buildings. Compare this to the original Warzone’s Verdansk, however, which was more poorly lit, and it’s unlikely that the skin will become a problem like Roze's 'Rook' skin was.
  • In the CDL, which starts tomorrow, pros are likely to use standard operator skins that were present in the game’s launch to prevent any imbalances, with overlays added during the broadcast to display each team’s outfit. Tournament platform CMG has already announced that the LAT home skin is banned from use in its matches, which shows how significantly people think it could interfere with competitive play.
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