You’ve probably recently booted up Modern Warfare 3 in order to dive right into the game’s first big seasonal content update. Featuring a range of new maps, operators, and weapons, not to mention a reworked Warzone experience, to get to grips with, there are loads of good reasons to be playing season one of the latest Call of Duty right now.
If you’re anything like me, however, you were immediately greeted by a terrifying error message that made you close the game out of fear. The menacing message reads: “Your data is corrupt or didn’t download properly. You must reset your rank and unlocks to continue,” which is probably the absolute last thing that you would want to hear having just spent the last couple of months grinding to unlock your favorite guns and reach the maximum rank.
You’re only offered two choices when this error appears, clicking “yes” to apparently erase your progress or hastily hitting “no” - which immediately closes the game. Although I wasn’t too keen to risk it at the time, the Modern Warfare 3 developers have thankfully confirmed that the appearance of this message is just a bug and that there won’t be any lasting repercussions for clicking through it to get back into the game.
In a post on the official Call of Duty Updates Twitter page, the error message was described as “incorrect” and the team offered reassurance that “your rank, unlocks, and purchases are not lost.” Unfortunately, they do state that your loadouts will likely be affected - so just be prepared to spend some time getting your go-to weapons back in order.
You can read the full message below:
📢 #MW3 #WarzonePlayers logging into Season 1 may see an incorrect error message stating their data is corrupt. Rest assured that your rank, unlocks, and purchases are not lost, although Loadouts, customization, and certain settings may be reset.December 6, 2023
Even if it won't affect my rank, I’m still not excited to see my loadouts reset - as I’ve already spent a lot of time decking my favorite guns out in the frankly adorable ice-cream themed Neopolitan camos. Hopefully a quick patch to fully remove the error is currently in the works.
For more on Modern Warfare 3, see our guide to the best controllers for Call of Duty or our list of the game's best weapons.
