Call of Duty: WWII Goes Offline Due to Mass PC Hijacks via RCE Exploits in Xbox PC Game Pass Version
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- PC players of Call of Duty: WWII were hacked while playing on the weekend of July 5-6, 2025.
- Hackers trolled players with Notepad pop-ups, PC shutdowns, and other moves that did not cause significant damage.
- The incident happened a couple of days later, when on June 30, 2025, Call of Duty: WWII landed on Xbox Game Pass.
Call of Duty: WWII PC players were hacked during the game on the weekend of July 5-6, 2025, according to various reports on Reddit and X (formerly Twitter), as hackers took over with the help of RCE exploits, leading to some relentless trolling.
RCE exploits in games let hackers run their own code on someone else’s device through the game, often by sending malicious data or commands. Besides leading to cheating, such a problem can allow malicious users to crash others’ games and even take control of the player’s system.
According to multiple tweets, Call of Duty: WWII, available on Xbox PC Game Pass, contained an unpatched RCE exploit that allowed hackers to troll players with Notepad pop-ups, PC shutdowns, and the display of spicy depictions of same-sex male love.
The incident is directly related to the fact that the fourteenth main installment in the Call of Duty series became available to members of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass, and Game Pass Standard subscription plans on Xbox One, PC, and Xbox Series X|S on June 30, 2025. According to a Reddit user, all Call of Duty titles from 2008’s Call of Duty: World at War up to 2015’s Call of Duty: Black Ops III have had such RCE exploit issues for years.
Notably, this issue only affected PC users, as such exploits rely on the level of code execution freedom that consoles simply don’t offer.
In response to the problem, Activision officially announced via post on X (formerly Twitter) that Call of Duty: WWII on the PC Microsoft Store was brought offline while they investigate reports of an issue. As of the time of writing, the game is available on Xbox Game Pass subscribtion as well as on the company’s digital storefront.
Call of Duty: WWII is a first-person shooter developed by Sledgehammer Games and published by Activision. It allows players to assume the role of Ronald “Red” Daniels, a member of a squad in the 1st Infantry Division, following their battles on the Western Front and set mainly during the historical events of Operation Overlord (D-Day).
