Sledgehammer Games Quells 'Call Of Duty: WWII' Connection Problems, Progression Issues

On Friday, Activision and Sledgehammer Games launched the highly-anticipated Call of Duty: WWII on all platforms. The Friday release gave fans ample time to play through the campaign or climb the multiplayer ranks over the weekend. However, there were some hiccups in connectivity and progression that the studio quickly nipped in the bud.

As expected, a multitude of Call of Duty fans started the game as soon as possible on Friday. This led to “an extremely high volume of players connecting to our servers in a very short window,” Sledgehammer Games said, which meant some players would eventually experience connection issues. In response to the issue, the dev pushed a patch that activated “higher capacity load balancers" that improved connectivity.

In addition to the patch, the studio also made the Headquarters social space—where you grab challenges, train with friends, and open supply drops—a solo experience and deactivated leaderboard updates for a short amount of time. According to the studio, the empty Headquarters and the lack of constant leaderboard updates helped to further improve the connection quality. Even though you won’t see random players in the area, you can still invite friends to join you in the space. You also can't see how you compare to other players in the rankings, but the game is still collecting your statistics after every match.

Those who managed to increase their rank over the weekend might notice an irregularity in their progression. Sledgehammer Games mentioned that some players lost “5 or fewer levels.” Even though the source of the problem is patched, some players will still have to play more matches to regain their lost levels, but the studio said that it’s “committed to making it up to the affected players” at some point in the future.

The first days and weeks are crucial for a game such as Call of Duty: WWII because of its massive fanbase. Sledgehammer Games will need to quickly address any game-breaking issues as they occur in order to create a fair, yet fun, experience. Fans can continue to voice their concerns on the game’s forums and social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter.