Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. News

Call of Duty: Elite offers an explanation for the problems and a free month for subscribers

Ryan Fleming
By

Saying that the launch of the Call of Duty: Elite service has been less than ideal is like saying that the economy is in a bit of a slump. The opening week for the service has been rough, partly because the things just hasn’t worked. At all. A few lucky users have managed to register their information, but stat tracking is still limited, the founder status promised hasn’t reached everyone and outages are common.

Thankfully, the problems are specific to the Call of Duty: Elite service and not Modern Warfare 3. Having issues with an optional service is one thing, but failing to deliver on a game that one man threatened to blow up a Best Buy over after they sold his copy, is another.

But to Beachhead’s credit, they are not skirting, as a certain company that rhymes with Pony did during its now infamous outages. Instead the developer has issued a full statement explaining what happened, as well as offering compensation for those that purchased a year of the Elite premium service.

Related

In a statement on the Elite website, the developer issued the following statement:

At launch, our registration and login systems were crushed by gamers trying to enter the Elite site at the same time. We have now fixed the registration and login systems, but we have found that the greater than expected demand is crashing servers. We’re immediately deploying multiple additional servers to beef up the system. We are also going to temporarily limit access to Elite services on both the console applications and website while we build additional capacity and scale. We’ll look to increase access to greater numbers of users as soon as possible.

As more users log into the Elite system, you may find that the wait to get into Elite is longer than you expect. We know how frustrating that is and we appreciate your patience. Many of you are now able to see your player card and stats, but if you don’t see all your recent matches or career summary, don’t worry — your gameplay data for your entire careers in both Black Ops and MW3 is safely stored, and it will all be available to you once these issues are resolved.

While the outages may be frustrating, it is good to see a company come clean and give the consumers an actual reason, rather than a series of escalating excuses. The developer has also promised to extend the service of premium members by one month:

And for our premium members who are Founders, know that granting your status and delivering your in-game benefits in MW3 is a priority. Also, to ensure that every premium member receives their full money’s worth, we are immediately and automatically extending your membership to Call of Duty Elite by 30 days at no additional cost. If you’re still considering becoming a premium member, we’re going to extend Founder eligibility until the end of the month, and you will also receive the additional 30 days of access.

The service is not necessary to play, and the extra month of service should more than make up for a few days of problems—or “challenges” as they say in corporate-speak– but it does put into question the timetable of some of the planned Call of Duty: Elite events, including the Friday Night Lights premier, which was scheduled for this Friday.

Editors' Recommendations

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 contains the series’ most uncomfortable mission yet
Simon "Ghost" Riley holding weapon and aiming down for Modern Warfare II promo art.

There’s something uniquely mean-spirited and depressing about Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 (2022)’s campaign. The Call of Duty series has always had issues with its pro-foreign occupation stances, but the sequel to the 2019 reboot hosts one of the most harrowing moments in the entire franchise. It's a moment that isn’t an edgy, marketable feature on the box art or making Fox News headlines like previous games in the series have had.

No, it’s more understated and subtle, but sticks out all the same for its troubling implications.
Borderline
The fifth mission in Modern Warfare 2’s campaign, “Borderline,” sees two Mexican Special Forces agents chasing a terrorist over the border into the U.S. and through a rural town. When they cross the border, the two remark that they don’t have any jurisdiction in the U.S., but can’t let the terrorist just get away, so they’ll sort out the legal details later and make sure to be careful.

Read more
Call of Duty: Warzone Caldera is live, but it’s worse than we feared
Section of the Caldera map in Warzone Caldera.

After being offline for nearly two weeks, the original Call of Duty: Warzone -- now branded as Warzone Caldera -- has relaunched, but the package is far from what it used to be. This modified version of the beloved game is completely stripped down, offering access only to the Caldera map and the standard battle royale mode. This wasn't much of a surprise, as Activision previously confirmed the game would lack key features, but now that Caldera is live, it's far more disappointing than we expected. Here's what's currently missing from the battle royale game.
No Resurgence maps

The original version of Warzone is no more. Arguably Caldera's greatest flaw is the removal of the two beloved Resurgence maps: Rebirth Island and Fortune's Keep. Resurgence mode was great for those who didn't have much time to play, as matches would often only last 15 minutes or so, making it easy to get multiple matches under your belt in one session. It also allowed players to respawn, which made it possible to enjoy the game more casually. Now, this mode doesn't exist -- not even in Warzone 2.0. If you were a Resurgence player, there's nothing for you in any version of Warzone right now, which is a shame.
Only two playlists

Read more
This Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II Black Friday deal is still active
Five main characters from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II.

The Call of Duty franchise has been one of the biggest players in gaming for a while now, and if you grew up in the early 2000s, you're familiar with the iconic Modern Warfare campaigns. Well, the game's latest iteration is already a smash hit and a lot of fun, and if you want to pick it up for Xbox or PlayStation, Walmart has it discounted down to $55 from $70, which is great for a newly released game. That said, you better hurry and pick it up if you like it because we've already seen many Black Friday deals expire. It's also better not to wait for any Cyber Monday deals since we aren't sure if we'll even see a deal on Modern Warfare II, let alone one as good as this.

Why you should buy Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II
There are generally two ways to enjoy Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II: online multiplayer or the campaign. First, let's start with multiplayer, a significant improvement on the last entry into the series, with several new modes and excellent gunplay. There's also a lot of customization in guns, allowing a lot of fine-tuning that's new to the franchise, and since we want to start you off with an advantage, we've ranked every gun on Modern Warfare II. That's not the only new thing there, with some great new and upgraded Killstreaks and Perks for you to play around with. That said, the maps sometimes feel cluttered due to having tons of entry points, and a large number of alleyways and small places to navigate create many sightlines that are hard to keep up with.

Read more