Call of Duty has no greater a flex than the tactical nuke. Back in 2009's Modern Warfare 2, the nuke was a killstreak that could only be earned by putting down 25 kills without dying. Triggering a nuke immediately ends the match in your favor, kinda like grabbing the golden snitch in Quidditch, but with skin-melting radiation. It took less than a week for players to figure out how Infinity Ward had brought back the nuke for its battle royale spinoff Warzone 2: instead of killstreaks, you have to win five matches in a row just to start the nuke quest.
At least, you usually have to. To celebrate the end of Warzone 2 Season 3 and the impending arrival of Season 4, Activision has temporarily lifted the winstreak requirement for the nuke quest, handing all of its millions of players keys to weapons of mass destruction.
Though, don't expect every match to end with a mushroom cloud for the next week. The temporary shortcut gives you access to nuke quest, but you still have to fight through swarms of players and AI to put the bomb together. The tasklist for assembling the nuke is called the Champions Quest, and it requires squads to drive all over the map collecting pieces of the bomb. Holding a piece of the bomb pings you live on the map for everyone to see, making it especially unlikely that you'll hold onto all three before someone steals them away.
Starting now, Champion’s Quest is enabled for all Players in all core BR modes!This week is your last chance to earn the current CQ rewards before they’re retired.New rewards coming with #Warzone2 Season 04… ☢️👀 https://t.co/cuxPWz1udl pic.twitter.com/Mi5iFcT4dUJune 7, 2023
On top of the potential chaos that this could create across Warzone for the next week, some players who completed the Champions Quest the hard way are irked that their exclusive rewards for getting a nuke (an operator skin, calling card, animated emblem) won't be so rare anymore.
"It’s so stupid considering so many players grinded out the 5 wins and completed the contract when the max amount of nuke attempts you can get is 4," wrote tallstan12 on the Warzone subreddit. "Now they’re just handing them out and you get an unlimited amount of attempts lol."
"I just got my first 5 win streak last week. I was super excited to go for the nuke tomorrow," replied user Sybrun. "But now it feels like I've been grinding for wins for absolutely nothing... This is so dumb. Just don't give the rewards at least."
Actually yea, that does kinda suck. I tend to think the Call of Duty community's obsession with unlocking gun camos that prove you successfully played the game a lot is a bit much, but the whole point of the nuke quest is to reward players for doing the hardest thing possible in the game. I'd probably wear that animated emblem with some pride too, and I'd probably be pretty annoyed that anyone can now get it.
Ironically, Activision says it's activating the Champions Quest for all because the current nuke rewards are going away after Season 3, to be replaced by new rewards in Season 4. Just days before those old rewards were about to become truly unreachable, they're now pretty easy to get. Bummer!
