Call of Duty: Vanguard players recently discovered that a weapon blueprint for the Double Barrel shotgun, called Wild Marble, doesn’t obey standard loadout rules. This blueprint can be purchased from the in-game store and allows players to equip two attachments, which usually can’t be used together. This pairing makes the shotgun even more powerful and has players calling it a pay-to-win blueprint.
In Vanguard multiplayer, the Double Barrel shotguns are notorious for their sheer power when running them with Akimbo. This gives players two of the weapons instead of one. However, one of the drawbacks to running Akimbo is that players aren’t allowed to equip an underbarrel attachment. This would make it more powerful than it already is.
A new Wild Marble blueprint for the Double Barrel seems to ignore this rule, though.
Double Barrel blueprint is pay-to-win in Vanguard
The Wild Marble blueprint is included with the Scavenger Hunt bundle. This bundle costs 1,400 COD Points, or $14, and features a few other cosmetic items. The Wild Marble shotgun blueprint has eight attachments, one on each available slot for the Double Barrel.
The Akimbo stock is one of these attachments, which makes sense given how popular Akimbo Double Barrel shotguns are right now in Vanguard. But, one of the other attachments is the SMLE Pistol Grip, an underbarrel that improves sprint-to-fire time and hip-fire accuracy.
If players attempt to build a Double Barrel loadout with Akimbo and an underbarrel, they won’t be able to. The loadout will say the underbarrel slot is “blocked by Akimbo.” However, with this new blueprint, players have access to the underbarrel slot with Akimbo equipped.
This gives the Wild Marble blueprint an advantage over every other Double Barrel loadout in Vanguard. Players who are willing to spend $14 receive this advantage, which is the definition of something being pay-to-win.
Sledgehammer Games has not addressed this issue yet but Activision stated that more communication will be coming soon from the developers. This was after the publishers delayed the start of Season 2 so the devs had more time to fix the problems in Call of Duty at the moment.
