The “Trans Bullet” bug in Call of Duty is a right-wing extremist rage bait

A possible call of Duty insect leads to a new Pride cosmetic item that paints the bullets of a version of one of the game’s weapons in the colors of the transgender flag. Now, right-wing rage jockeys are using it to spread transphobic conspiracy theories so idiotic you’d be laughable if the real-world threats didn’t underscore the uproar.

Season 4 of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 And War zone went online last week. In addition to a variety of new content, including Gundam Skins that transform players into walking anime mechs, the update also released free Pride cosmetics on June 1st.”call of Duty is for everyone and we are proud to celebrate Pride Month by offering seven different weapon camouflage variants, each representing the colors of the various LGBTQ+ flags,” said Activision wrote on his website.

One of these camouflage variants is the Transgender Flag. When the camouflage is applied, the player’s weapon is painted in a glittery version of the flag’s colors. The flag’s design is also applied to the ammo cartridge’s texture. a skin on a specific weapon

: the M4. call of Duty Leaker BobNetworkUK spotted this almost immediately and tweeted a screenshot of it as a joke. “THEY HIDE THE BULLETS ON SOME GUNS,” they said tweeted on June 1. “TRANS BULLETS, they’re going to hate it.”

Hours later, the shitpost was deleted by the Twitter account InsaneCopethat tries to mock liberals by reposting screenshots of things they tweet. From there, it quickly spread without context to the usual Gaming-close Outrage accounts. Current FreeStellarBlade petitioner Mark “Grummz” Kern took it up the next day, on June 3. Former Gameranx blogger Ian Miles Cheong shared it again They all mocked Activision for adding “trans bullets” to their game.

There is the account Libs from Tiktok, led by Chaya Raichik and notorious for promoting homophobic and transphobic conspiracies, has found it.”call of Duty now allows children to play the role of a literal trans*T*r*rist,” Raichik tweeted“Given the rise in actual trans violence that we are seeing, it is alarming that call of Duty would introduce this.”

call of Duty has not implemented this, however. Unlike all the imposters seeking influence in the screenshot, anyone who actually investigated the source of the bullets on the transgender flag would have quickly realized that they appear to be limited to a specific skin and a specific weapon.

Modern Warfare 3‘s M4 came with a special “Soul Harvester” weapon blueprint (which included a skin, special attachments for the M4, and “tracer rounds,” which are colorful ammo options that also leave traces of various visual effects like paint splatters or rose petals) for those who $100 to purchase the Vault Edition

of the game. Based on My cityIn testing, it appears that the “Trans Bullets” only appear when the Transgender Flag camouflage is applied to that skin on that particular weapon blueprint.

It is unclear whether this is a mistake (at one point during the test, the bullets in the cartridge were only the pink color of the trans flag) or a highly idiosyncratic reflection of how call of DutyThe complex shader system interacts via Thousands of items and cosmetics. In testing, any other skin camouflage applied to the M4 Soul Harvester blueprint caused the bullets in the cartridge to change color to match that skin. My city The Trans Bullets could not be reproduced with other weapons, including those that use tracer bullets similar to the M4 Soul Harvester.

Activision declined to comment and referred My city to the oOriginal Pride Month section of the Season 4 update.

Of course, the fact that the “trans bullet” narrative is nonsense doesn’t matter much. It hasn’t stopped liberals on TikTok and other accounts from spreading unsubstantiated or misleading stories in the past. The right-wing refrain about a scourge of violence perpetrated by queer people exploded in 2022. Before the election, Florida passed its Ban on “Don’t Say Gay”

and conservatives began to accuse gays, transgender people and liberals they did not know of be sexual predatorsAnd conspiracies began to circulate online claims that the shooter at Uvalde High School in Texas was actually transgender. It has now become a conservative mainstream discussion point to blame Gun violence against trans rights activists.

Another thing that accounts like Libs Of TikTok are picking up on is call of Duty The case is that the parents of the children killed in the Uvalde mass shooting Activision and other gaming companies were recently sued about the way some of their games fetishize certain real weapons. The lawsuit alleges a connection between the promotion of real guns in games and real acts of mass gun violence, and calls Activision’s games “training camps for mass shooters.” A spokesperson for the company called the Uvalde shooting “horrifying and heartbreaking in every way” but said scientific research shows “no causal link” between video games and violence.

This is not the first time call of Duty has become a flashpoint for a moral panic about LGBTQ+ people. During Pride Month 2023 Activision has withdrawn a skin from the game based on Nicholas “Nickmercs” Kolcheff, named after the popular streamer after he tweeted that LGBTQ+ rights activists need to “leave kids alone.” call of Duty Streamer Timothy “TimTheTatman” Betar defended Kolcheff and at his request, the company eventually removed his in-game skin.

Additional reporting by Alyssa Mercante