Call of Duty Warzone Battle Net, Without the Padding

This comes up often enough in Call of Duty that it deserves a straight answer rather than a thread to scroll through.

The accepted community answer is broadly right and wrong in a specific way that matters here. It is worth separating what the game does from what players have concluded it does. Screenshots age faster than text, which is why this describes rather than shows.

What to do instead

Most of the disagreement online comes from people describing different versions of Call of Duty. Nothing here depends on a setting you are unlikely to have. What follows assumes you are on a current install and have not modified it. Edge cases are genuinely rare, which is why the simple answer is usually the correct one.

The mechanic behind it is simpler than the discussion around it suggests. Patch notes move numbers around constantly; the shape of the answer holds even when a specific value shifts. Testing this yourself takes a few minutes and settles it definitively.

When the usual advice fails

Anything that behaves differently on console than on PC is flagged where it matters. The community wisdom on this is roughly half right, and the half that is wrong costs the most time. Do the cheap check before the expensive one — that ordering alone saves most of the frustration.

• Try the straightforward approach before the elaborate one.
• Check which version any conflicting advice was written for.
• Keep a save or backup from before you start — it costs nothing and occasionally saves an evening.
• Test it yourself where testing is cheap.
• Note the exception cases — they are specific rather than vague.
• Read the whole sequence once before doing the first step.

The practical answer

Most of the disagreement you will find online is two people describing different builds. Everything below is framed around the current state of Call of Duty rather than a launch-week impression. The short version is near the top on purpose; the reasoning is there if you want to know why. The developers have changed their mind about this at least once, which explains the older advice.

There is no hidden trick here that the game is keeping from you. The awkward part is rarely the step itself, it is knowing which step comes first. Where two approaches both work, the one with fewer moving parts is the one to keep.

Why it works this way

It helps to understand why a step exists, because then you can adapt it when your situation is slightly different. Half the pages on this topic were written for a build that no longer exists, which is why they stop matching what you see. If your result differs from what is described here, note what is different first rather than starting over.

There is usually a fast way and a reliable way, and it is worth knowing which one you are choosing. Call of Duty is not shy about hiding useful information two menus deep, so some of this is simply knowing where to look. None of this needs a paid tool, a third-party launcher or an account on a site you have never heard of.

Worth knowing alongside this

If you are coming to this after a long break, the terminology has probably moved on. Nothing here assumes a particular playstyle beyond wanting the thing to work. Where something depends on your platform or region, that is called out rather than glossed over.

Where people go wrong

• Treating a rare edge case as the normal behaviour and planning around it.
• Skipping the prerequisite because it looked optional in someone else's summary.
• Downloading a helper tool for something the game already does in its own menu.

Call of Duty FAQ

What if none of this works for me?

Then something in your setup differs from the assumption — version, region or platform. Check those three before anything else.

Why do people disagree about this?

Mostly because they are describing different versions. Version drift explains the majority of contradictory advice about Call of Duty.

Why do other guides describe this differently?

Most were written for an earlier version and never revisited. Compare the steps against what your build actually shows.

Do I need any mods or third-party tools for this?

No. Everything described here works with the base game on any supported platform.

Come back to the caveats list if it does not work first time — the answer is almost always in there.