An exploit in Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 is letting players stack a certain perk to gain super-human speed, all while moving in a crouch. Treyarch has responded and says it’s handing out suspensions for players who continue to use it.
It takes some trickery to get it to happen, but the upshot of the exploit is that it allows players to select the same perk multiple times in their custom classes, by having the host player switch between a custom lobby and a normal lobby while hovering over the Skulker perk.
Once you’re in a match, you have to get a single kill, and then crouching, standing, and crouching again will activate the glitch.
Normally, taking the Skulker perk lets you move a bit faster while crouched or prone, but when you’re able to take it four times the effect stacks, granting incredible speed – way faster than anyone is supposed to be able to move in Black Ops 4. It’s obviously a massive and unfair advantage for players who use it, and a major frustration for players who don’t.
You can see it in action in this .gif posted to the Black Ops 4 subreddit with the title “The skulker glitch needs to be patched asap.”
Treyarch has noticed the glitch and said in a post to the subreddit yesterday that it will be addressing the exploit in a future update. In the meantime, the company warned players not to use it or face penalties: the developers have identified players using it and wiped their Create-A-Class entries as a warning, and repeat offenders will face bans.
The penalties for using exploits or glitching are pretty stiff: on the first offense, a player gets a temporary suspension and gets their stats, Emblems, and Paintjobs all reset and their leaderboard entries erased. For “extreme or repeat offenses,” players face permanent suspension from online play and banishment from the game’s leaderboards.