Activision just released the latest in its long-running Call of Duty franchise, but not everyone who bought it is playing it due to a number of issues.
Players are reporting a variety of problems trying to download Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare on Xbox One (check out our review). A significant number of players are complaining that the digital download for the futuristic military first-person shooter freezes and never finishes loading on their console. Within the last hour, people on social media are noting that their Advanced Warfare downloads are stuck at the same point of completion for hours. Other Xbox One owners are reporting issues getting the Xbox Games Store to recognize the purchase of Advanced Warfare at all. As one of the best-selling franchises of the last several years, it’s no surprise that people are slamming Microsoft’s servers to buy the new Call of Duty — and it sounds like that traffic is causing complications.
https://twitter.com/Dorsetto/status/529273005818773504
We’ve asked Microsoft for a comment, and we’ll update this post with any new information. It did update the Xbox Live support page acknowledging player difficulties:
“Are you having trouble redeeming an Xbox Live Gold trial that came with the Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare Bundle? Don’t worry, Xbox members, we’re on it! We appreciate your patience while we work and invite you to check back in 30 minutes for an update on our progress.
We’ve also received reports that some users are having issues getting their pre-ordered copy of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. We’re happy to say that our team has fixed the problem, but if you are still experiencing any issues, delete the game and re-download it.”
The company’s support account on Twitter is also fielding questions, but its advice is mostly limited to having people check their modems and routers and turning everything off and on.
Xbox One owners did have the option to predownload Advanced Warfare. Anyone who preordered the digital version could get the entirety of the game on their hard drive for the last week. But this presented completely different problems. Some people reported having to re-download the entire game on launch day despite having it pre-installed and ready to go.
While Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is having download issues, many players are online and playing the shooter. We’ll continue to monitor the launch for any further problems, but it sounds like the online experience is running smoothly so far.