Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War: Season 3 update changes bullet velocity and adds aim-punch to snipers

As Black Ops Cold War approaches its mid-season update, Treyarch has revealed several changes to the game, primarily for snipers. Providing insight-filled patch notes ahead of the May 20th release, developers explained their decision to rework snipers and make changes to bullet velocity.

This article dives into the many revelations from the latest patch notes.

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Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War gets a sniper overhaul

Along with the 80's action heroes joining Black Ops Cold War for a limited time after May 20th, there will be a massive change to how snipers behave in the game. According to the patch notes,

"This update brings two new rounds of weapon tuning to Black Ops Cold War: one for all modes, and one specific to Zombies. The first is a global tuning pass for all sniper rifles, assault rifles, LMGs, and pistols to help each weapon stand out on its own and play to its strengths. This includes adding a custom flinch effect to all snipers and individualizing ADS momentum for each sniper rifle."

Custom Flinch: A sniper-specific flinch that moves the weapon's aim while being hit. This flinch is more pronounced in ADS. Attachments that reduce flinch have been factored into this feature update.

ADS Momentum: ADS (Aim Down Sight) Momentum is now individualized for each sniper rifle. ADS Momentum is that feeling of weightiness as the weapon exits and re-enters ADS.

Players feel this when rapidly exiting and entering ADS, without fully returning to the hip position. Heavier sniper rifles will now feel weightier and re-acquire ADS slower accordingly. Note that ADS Momentum is not used when entering ADS from the full hip-fire position.

All Assault Rifles: Improved bullet velocities across the board (with one exception) to allow assault rifles a more innate long-distance advantage over submachine guns. FFAR 1 has its Bullet Velocity reduced in exchange for an increase to its max damage.

Black Ops Cold War now has standardized headshot modifiers for assault rifles with this update. Assault rifles that have 5.56 ammo have a 1.4x headshot modifier, while those that use 7.62 ammo have a 1.25x modifier.

In general, assault rifles that use 7.62 ammo deal higher damage already. The number of hits required to kill remains the same, except for the FFAR 1, which requires fewer hits to kill if the player scores a headshot.

All Light Machine Guns: Refactored Bullet Velocity gives LMGs more inherent power with less reliance on the Task Force Barrel attachment. These changes provide more value to the rest of the Barrel attachments, while the Task Force Barrel remains a solid choice for boosting Bullet Velocity.

All Pistols: Pistols have received minor adjustments to Bullet Velocity. These changes better fit each pistol by pushing their “hitscan” range to the edge of their most-used engagement distances.