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Enlarge / You'll ne'er spot maine coming...
Industry watchers who wage attraction to Steam's Top Sellers charts whitethorn person noticed a astonishing introduction climbing adjacent the apical successful caller days: a cosmetic Call of Duty tegument pack themed aft the Los Angeles Thieves Call of Duty League (CDL) team. Those amazingly beardown income astir apt person small to bash with squad fandom, though, and much to bash with however the astir all-black kit tin marque players harder to spot successful Modern Warfare II oregon Warzone 2.0 matches.
The LA Thieves pack, which went connected merchantability earlier this week, is one of 12 antithetic themed tegument packs designed astir the 12 teams successful the competitory CDL. But portion each different disposable CDL tegument battalion features agleam colors and/or a striped enarthrosis harness for casual visibility, the LA Thieves' offering is astir wholly black, prevention for a tiny reddish "LA" logo connected the chest, near arm, and back.
Players person rapidly noticed however this outfit could marque them harder to spot successful the darker parts of immoderate Call of Duty maps. "Make definite you guys caput to the store and prime up the lone tegument that gives you a competitory advantage," Thieves subordinate Sam Larew cheekily tweeted connected Tuesday.
Wednesday morning, instrumentality tract CharlieIntel noticed the battalion was the 11th bestselling point connected each of Steam, arsenic measured by full revenue. As of this writing, the $10 DLC still sits astatine the 18th presumption connected Steam's US gross charts, good up of fashionable games similar Marvel Snap and Final Fantasy XIV.
Enlarge / One of these things is not similar the others...
The adjacent highest-selling CDL skin, the OpTic Texas pack, presently sits astatine 125th connected an expanded database of Steam apical sellers, suggesting it's not conscionable request for generic CDL skins driving those LA Thieves sales. "I tin guarantee you these Team Packs aren't usually precise popular," says one writer astatine esports tract EarlyGame. "But the LA Thieves' kit is astir wholly black, and it's becoming fashionable for each the incorrect reasons... This is going to extremity well..."
History repeating?
This isn't the archetypal clip the Call of Duty assemblage has dealt with "purely cosmetic" DLC that provided players with a imaginable competitory advantage. In aboriginal 2021, Warzone players acold and wide complained astir the astir all-black "Roze" skin, which was dominating tournaments and which astatine slightest 1 fashionable streamer said was "ruining" the game.
After promising a hole successful April, developer Raven Software yet made the Roze tegument a spot brighter successful a June 2021 crippled update. The tegument had its brightness accrued again, this clip by 70 percent, successful a May 2022 update that CharlieIntel said was "meant to guarantee that her outfit remains perfectly disposable during aggravated gunfights."
After conscionable a fewer days of availability, the LA Thieves tegument is already drafting plentifulness of Roze comparisons and complaints of "Roze 2.0". One fashionable streamer adjacent complained connected Twitter that the caller tegument is "somehow darker than Roze was successful [Warzone]." The LA Thieves "knew what they were doing with this one," they added successful a follow-up tweet.
The LA Thieves CDL location variant for Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2 is SOMEHOW darker than Roze was successful WZ1. pic.twitter.com/eruDswNZoK
— ModernWarzone 2.0 (@ModernWarzone) November 29, 2022
Some players suggested that the improved lighting and lighter-colored godforsaken maps successful Warzone 2.0 mean an all-black tegument volition connection little of an vantage this clip around. But that's acold from a cosmopolitan sentiment. "The crippled is accelerated paced, thing that doesn't determination is precise hard to place arsenic a menace but if it's precise obvious," arsenic 1 Redditor pointed out. "If you're not wearing agleam colors, it works."
As yet happened with Roze, Raven Software and Activision could erstwhile again nerf this caller all-black tegument to lessen its perceived visibility vantage successful the game. But it seems improbable that immoderate specified alteration volition pb to refunds for each those players who are presently making the tegument a astonishment bestseller. As always, whitethorn the purchaser beware.
