Most Broken Guns In Call Of Duty: Warzone History, Ranked

Call of Duty: Warzone arrived in 2020 as a free-to-play battle royale experience featuring maps, operators, and weapons from Modern Warfare 2019. However, Warzone eventually became jam-packed with the weapons added from Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and Vanguard, and new DLC weapons are still continuously being added with each season of content. Offering such a wide variety in Warzone means that sometimes a few guns slip into the game with the wrath of overpowered or completely "broken" stats. Here we break down some of the most broken weapons ever introduced in Call of Duty: Warzone's history.

This ranking includes weapons from across Modern Warfare, Black Ops Cold War, and Vanguard titles, highlighting overpowered guns that controlled the meta for months at a time, as well as weapons that were only considered broken for just a few days. Of course, this weapon list is subjective, so some might disagree and view other unlisted weapons as more or equally overpowered. Warzone 2 is set to arrive later this year, following shortly after the release of Modern Warfare 2, but it’s still uncertain whether this next iteration of the battle royale will be a 100% clean slate or include the weapons from previous titles. If the older weapons get integrated at some point, we could have more broken guns to serve as contenders for this list.

Though it was one of the most wildly "broken" guns in Warzone, we're listing Modern Warfare's FR 5.56 assault rifle lower on the list because it was overpowered in Warzone for only a day or two. Players quickly discovered the FR 5.56 assault rifle's underbarrel shotgun attachment was "broken" and allowing for one-shot kills at a very unrealistic range. Once word got out about this overpowered underbarrel shotgun, Raven Software was quick to nerf the attachment.

Another broken gun that was really short-lived in Warzone was Modern Warfare's Fennec full-auto submachine gun. The Fennec received an accidental buff to bullet velocity, and while it was quickly corrected by Raven Software, there was a short time where the submachine gun was able to beam parachuting players out of the sky with its unlimited range.

Weapon balancing has been much better in Warzone since Vanguard's integration, especially with the updates that followed after Season 1. However, it's worth mentioning that Vanguard's Double Barrel shotgun was quite a terror in its initial introduction. Players quickly realized what a menace the gun could be when paired with the right set of attachments, most specifically when using the sawed-off barrel, Akimbo, and the Quick perk. This made the dual-wielding shotguns a speedy powerhouse at close-range, and it was often seen wreaking havoc on Warzone's smaller Rebirth Island map.

The Sykov pistol was introduced late in Modern Warfare, but it quickly created chaos in Warzone when used with the Akimbo perk. Dual-wielding these pistols gave a ridiculously fast time-to-kill, melting opponents in close-range fights. This was a meta secondary weapon option for many players until the weapon's eventual nerf.

Black Ops Cold War's MAC-10 submachine gun has been a dominant choice in Warzone's past, and the SMG is still a powerful gun for the current state of Warzone. The MAC-10 could easily be called an overpowered weapon for its high fire rate and ability to provide some of the best movement speed in the game, but there was a time when a specific blueprint made the gun even more deadly. Weapon blueprints aren't supposed to change the stats of weapons outside of what players can build with the game's specific set of attachments, but a bug caused the Gallantry blueprint of the MAC-10 to have increased damage for quite a bit of time in Season 1 of Black Ops Cold War and Warzone.

Modern Warfare's R9-0 shotgun was once a powerful weapon in Warzone, boasting a high fire rate and decent bullet spread, but the weapon became even more punishing and practically broken with the Dragon's Breath Rounds attachment equipped. Using these incendiary rounds would deal the weapon's regular pellet damage, but it followed up by dealing fire damage to the opponents as well. This was often a frustrating encounter, because even if a player survived a gunfight against an opponent with an R9-0 shotgun, they could still die from the lingering fire damage.

The FAL is not often a popular gun in Warzone, but when weapon balancing arrived during Modern Warfare and Warzone's Season 4 Reloaded update, it gave the gun a powerful damage buff. The semi-auto assault rifle quickly gained popularity for its ability to obliterate opponents with two-shot kills. The FAL assault rifle dominated the Warzone meta for a few weeks before the developer eventually implemented nerfs. The gun is still powerful, especially when landing headshots, but the weapon's high recoil makes it less viable in the current state of Warzone.

A Magnum can be a powerful handgun on its own, but there was a time in Warzone's history when the meta was dominated by Modern Warfare's "Snake Shot Akimbo" Magnums.

Players paired the akimbo perk with the .357 Magnum's completely overpowered Snake Shot rounds, which fires buckshot-filled shells from the handgun to pack a shotgun-like punch. This Snake Shot Akimbo meta meant that players could quickly hipfire these Magnums and delete their opponents at close range with an almost-instant death.

There was a time when using Modern Warfare's AS VAL assault rifle in Warzone felt a lot like cheating. The assault rifle was once so broken in the battle royale that the weapon had maximum bullet penetration, meaning players could easily get kills through buildings and other cover. Players further abused the weapon's broken stat by equipping Snapshots, which are Call of Duty's tactical grenades that temporarily highlight enemy players through walls. This was the Warzone meta for a time, as it was far too easy to pop a Snapshot to highlight enemy players behind cover and then beam them through the walls with the AS VAL.

The most notable reign of terror in Warzone is Black Ops Cold War's DMR 14 tactical rifle, which plagued lobbies for at least an entire season before finally getting nerfed. Pre-nerf, this extremely precise rifle could two-shot kill from nearly anywhere on the map, and the gun could be beefed up with a large magazine to keep ammo at a player's disposal. Since guns are getting nerfed much quicker these days, the DMR 14 may go down as the longest reigning "broken meta weapon" of Warzone's history.