To say the in-game economy of Call of Duty’s DMZ mode is funny is an understatement. $40 bucks for a roll of tape? A picture of a dog for $10? $100 for soothing hand cream? (watch out, Sephora). A recently discovered glitch, however, is flooding players’ backpacks with substantial amounts of cash—if they can pull off the exploit successfully
DMZ is somewhat of a “make your own adventure” kind of mode. There are quests and contracts, but you’re otherwise free to roam the large open-world map, survive, and do as you please within the time limit. Get in, grab some stuff, get out. As you collect miscellaneous items of varying value to sell for cash, you can buy better gear, or exfiltrate with that cash for an XP boost that matches a percentage of the money you have on you.
Out of ammo? Time to loot and sell to get more. Out of armor? Same process. Weapon XP is also very generous in DMZ, meaning the more you can do to get XP (like looting or exfiltrating with cash) the more you can upgrade your weapons. This latest money glitch, however, cancels out any need to scavenge for resources as merely a few moments of fiddling around with the HUD can net you more cash than an entire session spent looting. Check out an example of it here:
The money glitch is by all accounts still active (though I couldn’t pull it off myself), and is achieved by players tossing money on the ground near a modified weapon dropped by a fallen AI. With a medium or large backpack equipped, position yourself in such a way as to have the HUD indicate that you’re picking up the cash, but train your crosshairs on the modified weapon. Stowing that weapon in your backpack, as evident from a couple of YouTube videos already, will flood your inventory with enough cash to check out with a ton of XP if you survive, or buy up all the toys in a Buy Station to become brutally unstoppable.
Kotaku has reached out to Activision to ask whether the glitch is still active and whether a fix is expected.
A similar glitch where the player leaves money in a “Dead Drop” trash can has also been reported, though this one has either been fixed or is not as easily replicable.
DMZ is a mode where planning and decision-making often mean the difference between survival and death, so naturally many aren’t happy that other players are able to cheat the system to get ahead—especially when cheating that system can let you get better gear to deny other players a successful exfiltration. Others have pointed out that abusing glitches could lead to a potential ban based on the game’s policies, so exploit at your own risk.
That said, the money glitch is bringing up other pain points in DMZ, particularly where it concerns the current difficulty of AI (which is even worse if you’re a solo player). In a mode that can be so brutally punishing, and also has no means of item recovery if you suffer a crash, it’s understandable why breaking the rules to make the mode a bit more manageable can be tempting.
While it’s important to remember that DMZ is still technically in beta, glitches and exploits that allow players to get far ahead with minimal effort on top of very punishing AI could be enough to cause players to bounce off the mode and return to more traditional experiences like Warzone 2.0 or Modern Warfare II’s multiplayer.