Warzone is trying something new
- In Warzone, a “cosmetic toggle” that will disable legacy character skins at a client level
- With this toggle, players will instead see operators from Modern Warfare 4, making the game stylistically cohesive
- This toggle only exists within Warzone, as Modern Warfare 4 itself won’t carry forward any cosmetics from past games.
This time last year, Call of Duty had to look itself in the mirror and admit that all the ugly crossover skins had gotten out of hand. The company committed to a clean break with Black Ops 7: No old skins would carry forward, and future cosmetics would have to fit the Black Ops universe to make the cut. That lasted for about three months, when a CoD x Fallout collaboration arrived and all bets were off again.
This new toggle is, without a doubt, a positive change for CoD that I personally never expected to happen. If I were a Warzone diehard, I’d turn this on from day one and never look back. It’s a shame, though, that this toggle appears to be only a temporary vacation from tacky outfits.
Since, according to this blog post, skins from Modern Warfare 4 aren’t filtered out with the toggle, Warzone players will still be subject to whatever future attire is destined for the new game. So Warzone will only be stylistically cohesive for as long as Modern Warfare 4 is. By the time Season 6 rolls around, we might have Timothée Chalamet in Dune gear or Travis Kelce running amok in Warzone, and the toggle would be rendered pointless.
That is, unless Infinity Ward makes its own commitment to non-goofy cosmetics between now and launch, or expands the toggle to exclude all store outfits. I’ve reached out to Activision for clarification on how this will work.