Call of Duty Warzone Finally Ditches Annoying Gas Mask Animation After Years of Player Complaints [IGN]

Ever since Warzone launched in 2020 players have complained about the Gas Mask animation getting in the way of actually seeing what’s going on. Now, with the launch of Season 5, Activision has finally done something about it.

Warzone Season 5 launches today, July 24, and brings with it this much-needed improvement. Developer Raven Software’s patch notes detail the ‘Dynamic Gas Mask Overlay Quality of Life’ change:

“The gas mask overlay will now fade in and out depending if you’re in gas or not,” Raven explained. “This way, players can equip the gas mask at any time without having their vision impacted.”

The battle royale’s gas mask, which, as you’d expect, lets players breathe within the damaging gas as the circle of play shrinks, had an equip/unequip animation that would trigger whenever the wearer would move in/out of the gas. It had the habit of getting in the way of the action at the worst possible moment (during a firefight), forcing players to store it in their inventory and manually equip it when needed.

Now, this issue should be a thing of the past, leaving those with the gas mask free to equip safe in the knowledge that doing so won’t harm their chances of victory. Players have reacted positively to the change, which comes over four years after Warzone’s record-breaking launch.

It only took 4 years and 3 months but it has finally happened in Warzone hahahaha

The Gas Mask Animation is Gone https://t.co/OI90iR0LRD

— James – JGOD (@JGODYT) July 24, 2024

Elsewhere, Season 5 makes big weapon balance changes and other user interface and user experience improvements. The update comes ahead of the launch of this year’s mainline Call of Duty game, Black Ops 6, and its integration into Warzone.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.