Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War glitches are making players lose their heads and legs

Black Ops Cold War headless glitch
(Image credit: Treyarch/nommas)

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War dismemberment glitches sounds really creepy, but they're actually hilarious.

The glitch has been reported to appear in various places throughout the game, and what it does is rather cleanly remove bits of your operator. Could be their head, could be their entire lower body, could be anything. It doesn't seem to be a painful process, and it isn't even permanent. In this video from Reddit user thunder_spud, you can see their legs seem to get a little ahead of them before they realize their error and let the rest of the body catch up.

The funniest bug I have seen. My legs .... ran off without me ? from r/blackopscoldwar

Here's the same thing happening from another perspective, complete with confused "What?!" from the uploader Vlyer.

Just had this weird 3rd person glitch for a second from r/blackopscoldwar

Another post from nommas shows their character having trouble keeping their head in the game.

You guys need to relax. The bugs in this game are nothing to lose your head over. from r/blackopscoldwar

It seems like we're actually looking at two different kinds of glitches here: one that causes the lower body bits the game shows you when you point the camera straight down to get out of sync with the player's first-person perspective; and another that mysteriously removes pieces of operators. Two separate issues that unite to make Black Ops: Cold War the body horror/comedy event of the season.

While those glitches are mostly harmless (though it's hard to get a headshot on somebody who doesn't have a head), Treyarch has been working on fixes for more pressing issues like broken weapon XP rates in multiplayer and zombies.

Black Ops Cold War Operation Red Circus | Black Ops Cold War ending | Black Ops Cold War Dark Ops | Black Ops Cold War best guns | Black Ops Cold War floppy disk

Connor Sheridan

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and now I'm a staff writer here at GamesRadar.

Latest in Call of Duty
A player wearing a gasmask and holding a gun during the shooter, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6.
Call of Duty season 2 brings back Gun Game and a fan-favorite Zombies weapon we haven't seen in 10 years
A player wearing a gasmask and holding a gun during the shooter, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6.
136,000 Call of Duty accounts have gotten banned since ranked launched for Black Ops 6: "We’re not slowing down in our mission to shut down cheaters"
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War reportedly surpasses Red Dead Redemption 2's huge development costs, with a massive $700 million budget
Black Ops 6
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 makes headshots deadlier while cutting back on weapon sway and recoil: "We will be keeping a close eye on sniper balance after this change"
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 movement.
Black Ops 6 player spent nearly 20 hours grinding to Prestige without getting a single kill, all by spamming Spy Cams
Black Ops 6 Zombies
Call of Duty hacker says "I had my fun" after reportedly getting thousands of Warzone and Modern Warfare 3 players falsely banned
Latest in News
Assassin's Creed Shadows cinematic screenshot
Assassin's Creed Shadows reaches 1 million players on day one, and it sounds like even Ubisoft's having a tough time believing it: "It's not even 4PM here"
Pal wields a massive turret in a screenshot from Palworld
Palworld devs tried, but the "certain franchise plus guns" brand in the West "has stuck with us to this very day despite our best efforts to shake that off"
The Last of Us
The Last of Us 2 Remastered finally gives the most underrated character from Part 1 the love he deserves by making him one of two new playable heroes in the roguelike mode No Return
Fantastic Four #30
Thanks to Doctor Doom, Ben Grimm is no longer the Thing and his kids don't even recognize him in Fantastic Four #30
The Walking Dead: Dead City season 2
First trailer for The Walking Dead: Dead City season 2 sees Maggie fight a bear, Hershel plot revenge, and Negan give Lucille a terrifying upgrade
Assassin's Creed Shadows screenshot showing Yasuke kneeling and praying while wearing a traditional purple robe
Assassin's Creed Shadows channels the MCU with an intro that celebrates Ezio, Altair, and other heroes from the series' 17-year history