Frustrated CoD players cry foul over Black Ops 6 Season 1 launch, XP token bait-and-switch

Call of Duty players were excited to rip into Season 1 of Black Ops 6, a massive new Battle Pass, and a heap of new content for the popular shooter this week. However, the launch of the season has partially stalled thanks to bugs with hoarded XP tokens and a less-than-stellar gameplay experience.

Many players hit social media upset at Activision shortly after the launch of the season. The chief concern among players — the loss of XP tokens saved from previous titles that could be used to level up the new pass.

The CoD community has been simmering for over a week after Black Ops 6 launched with player finding their hoarded XP tokens from Modern Warfare titles over the past few years were missing.

A midweek update saw the UI in the game update to include the tokens once again, but as Season 1 and the Battle Pass launched, the UI changed with the tokens seemingly missing again. Outside of a single patch note that stated this was a bug that has now been fixed, no other mention of the tokens was made.

This sent fans into a fury. "We should all raise hell over this," one player said, while others mentioned they had already uninstalled the title. "I had about 14 hours of both level and weapon XP and they're all poof, gone now," another said.

However, a weekend post from the Treyarch team on X mentioned players' tokens were still there, but a bug was preventing causing issues with the game hence their "removal."

"It also introduced some potential risk to game stability, which is why it was patched yesterday," Treyarch said. "We realize how much players appreciate being able to redeem legacy XP tokens in both BO6 and Warzone, so we are currently testing a way to implement this change correctly in a future update."

In the meantime, players can activate their XP tokens via the Warzone menu, then switch back to Black Ops 6 multiplayer if they so choose, as XP boosts are applied to both simultaneously.

Amidst complaints about game-breaking latency bugs and the season's cosmetic collection, many players were furious over supposedly missing out on a bunch of Battle Pass tier skips — but it's all a case of misinformation.

The Vault Edition of the Black Ops 6 Season 1 battle pass included, among other bonuses, 50 tier skips that allow players to immediately unlock levels in the pass for instant rewards. Players were shocked, however, to find on launch day they only had 20 skips on their pass.

The image referenced reads 50 skips, but it was later revealed this image was used in a thumbnail for a YouTuber's video. Nevertheless, without checking official sources like the Vault Edition trailer or an original blog post, many fell for the image.

"It boggles my f*****g mind seeing how out of touch they are with the community. I enjoy the game myself and have been playing but there is some serious glaring issues with these bugs," one player said before the realization sunk in. "The incompetence is crazy."

The community is certainly ferocious, but here's hoping they get their facts right before leveling the proverbial pistol next time.

Stay tuned to esports.gg for more Black Ops 6 news and guides!