One player was particularly annoyed at having to download Call of Duty: Modern Warfare shaders yet again before playing a game, so he halted the download. Unfortunately, he discovered something that may explain some fishy behavior we've seen from other players.
A submission on the /r/modernwarfare pretty much explains itself in the title: "Was tired of downloading shaders every update... I guess you get wallhacks if you don't download them".
The Reddit submission also includes a video that shows exactly what happens if you don't download shaders. To put it simply, you can just straight-up see through walls.
Modern Warfare Shaders May Be Required in the Future
Believe it or not, the Modern Warfare shaders preload process is not required. Here's what an Activision Support page says about it:
Shader Preloading
Shader Preloading is an important part of the first boot process. You're warned in-game to let the Shader Preloading process complete before starting any game mode. Here's the average Shader Preloading duration across a variety of systems.
[...]
This is not enforced, so you can load in-game while the Shaders Preload is still underway, but you'll be warned that this might affect performance.
I imagine that Activision expected that the game wouldn't function if shaders weren't preloaded properly. Instead, it seems to have given at least one player the ability to see through walls, and others have said similar reports, although some disputed it. It is worth noting that not all walls will be seethrough as presumably some of them don't need it formatted or set up.
That being the case, it seems likely that Shader Preloading is probably going to be required before you play in multiplayer games at some point in the future. An Infinity Ward staffer simply replied "thanks" as a top-level comment, so they're now aware of the problem. We can't say for sure how they'll fix it, but requiring the Shaders Preload to finish is probably the most straightforward solution they'll go with, at least for the short term.
What do you think of the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare shaders wallhack bug? Do you think Activision or Infinity Ward should have anticipated this? Let us know in the comments below!
