Call of Duty: Modern Warfare's Halloween scarecrows explode if you damage them

(Image credit: Activision)

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare's Halloween event, The Haunting of Verdansk, features scarecrows that'll blow up in your face if you do too much damage to them. The explosive interaction was uncovered last night by VValkyr, who posted their findings to the Modern Warfare subreddit last night.

In their clip, VValkyr runs up to the scarecrow during a multiplayer match. The way the effigy spins on the spot to face the approaching player is pretty spooky in its own right, which is possibly what encouraged VValkyr to repeatedly hit it with melee attacks.

Scarecrows don't like to be abused :( from r/modernwarfare

Unfortunately, after four such strikes, the scarecrow seems to have had enough. It hops briefly up in the air, before unleashing a devastating explosion that kills VValkyr instantly, throwing their body clear off the screen.

If you're hoping to avoid a similar fate, then you'll probably be fine. Elsewhere in that Reddit thread, use WetTrumpet says they tested what exactly triggered the explosion, and found that you'll need to do 350 damage to a scarecrow before it'll take its revenge. It's also worth noting that there are no damage multipliers for chest or headshots, meaning a stray bullet probably won't result in some explosive retaliation. Also important is the fact that the scarecrows will only target the player that's attacking them, so you won't be able to mess with your teammates or lay a trap for the other team.

There's a lot more than spooky scarecrows in the Haunting of Verdansk event, from crossovers with Saw and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre to the new Zombie Royale game mode, where if you die, you'll turn into a zombie who can eat other players in order to return to the world of the living. The Halloween event runs until November 3.

Modern Warfare will soon stop being the new CoD on the block, so here's everything we know about Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War instead.

Ali Jones
News Editor

I'm GamesRadar's news editor, working with the team to deliver breaking news from across the industry. I started my journalistic career while getting my degree in English Literature at the University of Warwick, where I also worked as Games Editor on the student newspaper, The Boar. Since then, I've run the news sections at PCGamesN and Kotaku UK, and also regularly contributed to PC Gamer. As you might be able to tell, PC is my platform of choice, so you can regularly find me playing League of Legends or Steam's latest indie hit.

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
Balatro
Balatro creator started "properly playing the game myself about a week before launch" and had "a pretty emotional moment" where he realized it's "actually fun"
Death Stranding 2 Collector's Edition
Hideo Kojima reveals Death Stranding 2: On the Beach release date, and the Collector's Edition includes exactly what I predicted it would
Kingmakers
Kingmakers is a strategy game about taking on medieval armies with a gun, but its devs thought the giant mech was too much
The Witcher 3 lead says "not many games" were trying to match the RPG back in 2015, and that meant "there was a risk" to making it in the first place
The Blood of Dawnwalker
The Witcher 3 dev says his new vampire RPG Blood of Dawnwalker wants to challenge genre conventions, but only if "we're changing them to actually achieve some goal"
Daredevil recap: The Defenders
Marvel fans are discussing which of the Netflix series characters would have survived the Blip