Even if Call of Duty no longer dominates the gaming world like it once did, it’s still a massive name—and when hackers manage to knock out an entire version of a Call of Duty game, people take notice. That’s exactly what’s happened to Call of Duty: WWII on Game Pass and the Microsoft Store, where online multiplayer has been completely offline for days with no clear explanation.
TechCrunch reports that the PC version available through Microsoft channels—not Steam—has apparently been hacked. While the exact details remain murky, an anonymous tipster and mounting complaints on Reddit suggest something more serious than cheating might be at play. Some players are worried about a remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability—meaning the game could theoretically give hackers control of your computer just by playing a match. That terrifying scenario hasn’t been confirmed, but it’s enough to explain why Microsoft may have shut the servers down entirely.
The Game Pass version had already been dealing with cheaters, which is annoying but hardly uncommon in multiplayer games. The idea that it might also pose a real security risk to players? That’s a different ballgame—and a major problem for Microsoft, which owns Activision-Blizzard and is aggressively pushing Game Pass as its flagship gaming platform.
Worse still, this comes during a rough moment for the company: the latest in a string of mass layoffs aimed at redirecting resources into AI development. As Microsoft tries to tout the future of gaming, a compromised legacy title sitting broken in its library is not the kind of story it wants front and center.
Until Microsoft or Activision provides official word, the Game Pass version of COD: WWII will remain offline—and players will be left wondering just how deep this problem goes.