Treyarch is Burying Your Favourite Marksman Rifle With Season 1 Update

With just a few weeks after the launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, Treyarch is preparing to drop the game’s first major seasonal update. This update brings a number of brand-new features that promise to shake up everything, including new maps, perks, and score streaks.

As players wait for Black Ops 6 Season 1, the developers have published the full patch notes before they’re set to go live. While everything looks incredible, Treyarch has nerfed the game’s most popular weapon, AEK-973, to oblivion and disappointed everyone.

Treyarch Has Absolutely Destroyed AEK-973 In Black Ops 6 Season 1

The AEK-973 is an absolute monster of a semi-automatic marksman rifle. It’s a three-round bust and allows you to one-shot kill from a significant distance. When you combine this weapon with the Rapid Fire mod, it stands as a meta-breaking menace. It’s just too quick for players to respond too.

However, Activision and Treyarch have had enough of players running rampant with AEK-973. In Black Ops 6 Season 1 patch notes, the developers have revealed that AEK’s recoil penalty has been bumped from 20-25% to 50%, which will make the rifle even more challenging to handle. This is alongside small mobility changes, including a higher sprint-to-fire time.

However, that’s not the end of it. Treyarch is also bringing changes to the Rapid Fire attachment, which will now only buff the gun’s fire rate by 5%. Its burst delay has also been switched from 115m to 295m. This will increase the TTK, which leads to higher waiting times to deal with a follow-up shot.

The Rapid Fire mod was crucial to any AEK-9743 loadout, and even the developers admit that its benefits were too strong not to be nerfed.

Obviously, the community isn’t happy with these changes. Players have taken to various social media channels to bash the decision, stating that it’s too harsh, and the gun will fall into the abyss with absolutely 0% usage.

All we can do is wait for Black Ops 6 Season 1 to arrive to see how this nerf impacts AEK-973. It certainly won’t be a top choice in Warzone once the integration happens.

Black Ops 6 is a Huge Hit For Activision

After Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision-Blizzard, Black Ops 6 became the first Call of Duty title to be released on Game Pass, and it’s been a huge success for both Microsoft and Activision so far.

According to the tech giant’s CEO, Satya Nadella, Black Ops 6 smashed records on launch and became the biggest Call of Duty release ever with a historic number of day one players. The shooter also drew a number of players to Xbox’s subscription service.

Associate Creative Director for Treyarch, Miles Leslie, also revealed that the game’s sales on PlayStation and Steam were 60% higher in comparison to 2023’s Modern Warfare 3.

In the same interview, Leslie also stated that putting the title on Xbox Game Pass had a huge impact. It allowed people who were doubting purchasing the game to give it a try, especially those who haven’t experienced a Call of Duty game in ages.

With that said, do you think Treyarch needs to revert the AEK-973 changes coming with Black Ops 6 Season 1? Let us know in the comments below.