Is there anything more serious than your ability - or inability - to hear footsteps??
August 17, 2020
Millions and millions of people have been having an absolute blast with Call of Duty: Warzone since it launched, but that doesn’t mean there hasn’t been controversy as well. Players have taken to online forums and social media to gripe about issues with weapon damage, campers, cross-platform hiccups, and more. Developer Infinity Ward has worked tireless to address those complaints, and for the most part, have done a wonderful job. Unfortunately, there’s one issue above all others that continues to be a thorn in the side of both players and Infinity Ward.
It seems that a considerable amount of Warzone players are not happy with how the game handles audio when it comes to in-game footsteps. Depending on how you’re moving in game, you’ll make more or less sound with your footsteps. Running at full-speed will obviously make you louder than someone who is crouch-walking towards another player. The problem is, players can’t agree if the sounds made are too loud, too quiet, or both.
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This footstep debate has been going on for months and months now, and Infinity Ward has attempted to fix the issue a handful of times. The overwhelming response when the problem first arose was that the footsteps were simply too loud. You would alert other players of your position from much too far of a distance, giving those standing still a considerable advantage. Infinity Ward swooped in to tweak settings, and as you might guess, players then started saying that footsteps were too quiet. Ever since then, Infinity Ward has been walking an impossible tightrope to try and please both sides of the player base.
While Infinity Ward continues to tweak the footstep situation behind the scenes, Warzone’s most recent update has taken the fan controversy to a whole new level. Buried deep within the official patch notes are details on the latest attempt to squash the footstep issue.
“Added a brief decay period when transitioning from heavy footsteps (sprint, tactical sprint) to lighter footsteps (walk). This addresses players immediately becoming quiet upon slowing down from fast movements.”
The changes mentioned above don’t sound like anything that would draw ire from players. It makes perfect sense that a player who goes from running to walking would have a bit of a transition period, and this update reflects that in footstep audio. Instead of going from super loud to super quiet, footsteps now taper off a bit as one volume fades into the other. The problem is that Infinity Ward also made another series of changes, and early analysis makes it seem that footsteps in general are now louder than ever.
While Infinity Ward hasn’t commented on the situation just yet, players believe that footsteps can now be heard at almost double the distance previously. Those footsteps are also heard with much greater audio quality as well. This not only includes players running around inside, but when one player is in a building and the other is outside. For there to be no difference for indoor and outdoor players, especially when one is in each location, does seem like quite the oversight.
At the very least, it’s clear that Infinity Ward continues to take the footstep audio situation seriously. They know fans aren’t happy with how the volume is handled, so they repeatedly change up settings. Unfortunately, in the process of trying to smooth over the issue, Infinity Ward seems to have created a whole new one. Now instead of players being miffed about the volume of footsteps, they’re also angry about the distance at which they can be heard. Looks like Infinity Ward will have to go back to the drawing board on this one. Either that, or give every player a pair of government-issued slippers!
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Kevin Cassidy has been covering all things Nintendo for over 15 years now, and has been leading the weekly GoNintendo Podcast for just as long. Kevin is also quite passionate about pro wrestling, anime, comic books, and more! You can reach Kevin at kcassidy@gonintendo.com, or follow him on Twitter via @GoNintendoTweet.
