Fans have been extremely vocal about their frustrations with the weapon since the game’s first day of release. RIVAL blasters also feature a tactical rail somewhat different from the standard tactical rail. The RIVAL series is designed for Nerfers ages fourteen and up in mind, as it features high-performance, '100 FPS' blasters for 'competitive team-based play.' Most RIVAL blasters are either magazine-fed or hopper-fed. In doing so, the dev took the gun from a de-facto assault rifle and tuned it back down to SMG status, where it will only be effective at shorter ranges. RIVAL is a series of Nerf ball blasters that was released in fall of 2015.

Those last two points are the ones Treyarch chose to target.

It had a high rate-of-fire, solid damage, good stability, and very little damage drop off at long ranges. Part of the initial problem with the weapon was that it simply didn’t have any weaknesses. While this isn’t the “take it out of the game” nerf that some players hoped for, it should help make the MP5 less of a dominant force. On Wednesday, Treyarch let fans know on Twitter that it had released a quick update to the MP5 to reduce its effective damage range by 33%, and adjusted its initial recoil. Thankfully Treyarch has released an emergency nerf to hopefully pull it back into line with the game’s other weapons. The MP5 submachine gun has absolutely dominated the first several days of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War’s multiplayer.

When did nerf come out