The Weirdest Glitches In Call Of Duty History

Video games are massive marvels of coding and technology, requiring precision and organization for everything to come together for release. However, many things slip through the cracks due to the sheer size of various projects. Despite being a massive AAA franchise, "Call of Duty" isn't immune to glitches occasionally making into the games. Many game-breaking bugs and glitches have frustrated players since the series' first installment. Between giving some players an unfair advantage, messing with other players' gameplay, or being a general nuisance, some of these glitches have grown notorious in the "Call of Duty" community. In particular, multiplayer glitches will live in infamy for those who had the chance to see them in a live lobby.

Although many bugs in "Call of Duty" can be exploited for nefarious purposes, not all of them are harmful to the game as a whole. Some glitches can produce hilarious graphical and audio effects, or allow players to explore unintended locations. These glitches can give players a fun investigation into the inner workings of the game, without hindering the experience of other players. Here are a handful of "Call of Duty" glitches that might give you both a healthy dose of nostalgia and residual annoyance.

While the Last Stand glitch is a bit situational and only provides a small window of advantage, the Snake glitch "Call of Duty" arguably completely breaks the multiplayer experience. This glitch is particularly infamous in the "Call of Duty" community, appearing multiple times throughout the series. Originating in "Call of Duty 3," the Snake glitch allows players to lay prone and still move at max running speed.  Under normal circumstances, the restricted mobility of being prone helps offset the perk of keeping a low profile. However, using the Snake glitch lets you quickly approach enemies with a smaller hitbox, making you hard to hit or spot even for the most eagle-eyed players.

While this is no doubt a frustrating bug on its face, much like the Last Stand glitch, the Snake glitch is a visual spectacle that is sure to at least give you a laugh before the glitch-abuser takes you out. Watching overly-serious "Call of Duty" Operators crawl across the map at blistering speeds may take some of the sting out of your impending doom.

While the last few entries could be used to help players win the day, some glitches are just detrimental to the unwitting players that they impact. One of these bugs is the No Weapon glitch. As the nickname implies, this annoying bug from the original "Modern Warfare 2" will take away your weapon until you leave the game or die. This glitch has a chance of activating if a player dies while entering the weapon select screen. Despite ruining a match, it's at least another bug with a funny visual element: When firing their missing weapon, character models will look as if they are repeatedly swapping weapons.

A new version of this glitch has plagued gamers in the remake of "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2." Players have theorized that this glitch may have been inadvertently created when the devs removed a duplication exploit, but this has not been confirmed. Sadly, this version of the bug doesn't come with any humorous visuals and simply leaves many players frustrated. Players on the "Call of Duty" subreddit continue to call for a fix for this glitch whenever it pops up, noting that it's extremely annoying to load in with nothing to defend themselves.

Another notorious and game-breaking glitch comes from "Call of Duty: Black Ops 2." This exploit — which can be triggered by tricking someone into looking at your playercard while the round is changing over — will cause players to freeze in place, unable to move or shoot, basically removing them from the game. The only thing that these players can do is view the scoreboard or simply abandon the match. Out of any glitch covered so far, this is one of the most notorious, and simply ruins the game for victims. Some devious players have taken to creating trolling compilations showing the Freeze glitch being unleashed on unsuspecting opponents.

No matter your stance on the morality of this glitch, it is interesting to note just how large of an oversight the Freeze glitch was, and how much of an impact it had on the community. This glitch sparked many debates in the community over messing with players using this glitch was harmless fun, or something that ruins the integrity of  "Call of Duty: Black Ops 2." While one player may view this as a perfect prank, others look down on this kind of intensive griefing.

This one is semi-useless and not really exploitable at all, but it can be pretty fun. When playing "Call of Duty: Black Ops 2," players have noticed strange audio bugs that wildly distort just about every noise in the game, and it can only be fixed by players shutting down their games. For the most part, this glitch turns all sounds into a crunchy static that is bound to hurt players' ears. Additionally, some players have reported hearing the voice lines of various characters getting mixed in with the various demonic sounds. Outside of sound effects, however, player voices still remain unchanged, making the glitched sounds even more disorienting.

Many players have found this random glitch to be creepy and unsettling. Showing off their clip of the bug, YouTuber TheRelaxingEnd quipped, "I don't know how this bug happened but it sure was creepy!" With very little forthcoming info on the cause, this "Call of Duty" glitch may be one of the eeriest the series has to offer.

Moving back to notorious glitches that terrorized "Call of Duty" lobbies during their heyday, we have the Javelin glitch. This glitch will allow players to employ the Javelin in "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" in an impossible-to-counter way. To use the Javelin, players normally need to lock onto a vehicle or map location and then fire a slow-moving rocket. This rocket will travel in an arcing pattern, flying high into the air before landing at its target. Using this exploit, players instead detonate the Javelin at their feet. While this takes the player character out with the rocket's massive splash damage, it can also easily take out multiple enemies as well.

This exploit was quickly patched out, but it was a game-breaking experience during the initial release of "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2." Players still remember the chaotic fun that this glitch brought about, with one player calling it "a limited time offer where you could have the guilty pleasure fun for about a week or 2 before [Infinity Ward] patched it." This just goes to show that even the most frustrating bugs can make for a hilariously memorable moment.

Heading back to the early days of "Call of Duty," we have a glitch that affects the Capture the Flag mode of "Call of Duty 3." Due to the looser physics engine of the game lacking the polish of more modern entries, using a melee attack on the flag-holder will sometimes cause that player to be launched at a high velocity, flinging them across the map. Generally, the flag-holder will even land unharmed. This can cause a lot of chaos in matches, giving the flag-holder a boost to victory that nobody could have ever expected. That's right; some people will hit their own teammates to send them to where they need to be.

Despite being arguably the most entertaining Capture the Flag glitch in "Call of Duty 3," it was far from the only one. Some players reported clipping through buildings to hide the flag in walls and make it impossible for opponents to counter. Other players have reportedly glitched their way to the top of a tower, making them virtually immune to all attacks.

While many of these glitches have left a mark on the "Call of Duty" community, none have had quite the same impact that one airplane glitch did at a "Warzone" tournament. Warzones Airplane glitch had. After redeploying from the Gulag, this hilarious and unexplained glitch caused one player to constantly switch between an airplane and their Operator, essentially making it seem like their character was morphing into a plane. Upon hitting the ground, this glitch caused the entire game to crash. 

Did... he just turn into a plane mid-tournament? 😵‍💫pic.twitter.com/uLSqER2OVM

— Dexerto Esports (@DexertoEsports) December 14, 2021

Though this doesn't seem like that big of a deal, the glitch just happened to be discovered during a huge competition: a $75,000 Twitch Rivals tourney, as a matter of fact. Following the crash, the tournament was postponed. With $75,000 on the line, seeing a glitch like this can be an impossibly annoying setback — but many spectators still found the glitch to be hilarious.