Call of Duty: WW2 now has a tiny leprechaun who spawns on the map
You have to be a craic shot to kill him.
Call of Duty: WW2 got a big new Saint Patrick's Day-themed update last night - and it adds an undead leprechaun who spawns on the map.
The Leprechaun Hunt mosh pit is a featured competitive multiplayer playlist that sees the little leprechaun appear every now and then with a cackle of laughter.
If you manage to kill him - and he takes a surprising number of bullets to take down - he explodes in a puff of green smoke and you immediately earn all three of your scorestreaks.
I dipped back into COD: WW2 PvP last night to give Leprechaun Hunt a shot, and it's a blast. When the leprechaun spawns, most of the players - on both sides - try to kill him. It's pretty funny! You can also use this to your advantage though, killing enemies who are more focused on the leprechaun than enemy players.
The little bugger is bastard to shoot, too! Here's what he looks like when he's dead (image courtesy of redditor Double_08).
That a leprechaun pops up in the middle of a tense, World War 2-themed battle between Allied and Axis soldiers at all is hilarious to me. And no, it's not historically accurate. But this is Call of Duty multiplayer. There's a mode in which you can spawn as a table, so...
Elsewhere, the Operation: Shamrock & Awe community event adds a variety of Saint Patrick's Day elements to Call of Duty: WW2, including green-coloured uniform variants, camos, charms and two new weapons (the M-38 submachine gun and the MG 81 light machine gun). Visit the Headquarters social space and you'll see a giant tankard made of gold slapped into the middle of the main area, which is, as you'd expect, at the end of a rainbow. There's even a bright green bowler hat to unlock for your soldier to wear.
Best of all, though, are the changes made to the game via an update that coincides with the Shamrock & Awe community event. Big changes have been made to the game's loot box system and the way you earn weapons. Supply drops now have a lowered duplicate rate, which is a welcome change, and the reward rates have been rebalanced to give players a wider variety of content in each drop. This should put an end to the soul-destroying triple duplicate pistol grip situation that has plagued Call of Duty: WW2 since launch. And the new armoury drop works like a bribe, but can be obtained for armoury credits. Nice.
Coveted weapons and weapon variants should be easier to obtain now, as they're earned through contracts and orders as well as weapon collections and supply drops. New special orders will reward certain weapons, too. And get this: developer Sledgehammer has promised it won't add new pistol grips to the loot pool. Huzzah!
One weapon has been nerfed: the devastating and hugely popular Volkssturmgewehr. It now has slightly increased recoil and decreased damage range so it's more on par with other rifles in its class, but early reports from players indicate it's still a shredding machine.
And finally, there's a new free map called Shipment 1944. This is available to season pass holders now, and to all players from 16th March.