There was a time when I lived and breathed Call of Duty: Mobile. Not just played it. Lived it. Back then, I wasn’t just a player. I was a predator. I could slide through alleys, dance through bullets, and drop twenty bombs in my sleep. Every gun was familiar, every map an extension of my reflexes. I was level 170 in the Garena version, grinding hard and fast in Southeast Asian lobbies that felt both challenging and fair. I knew my pace. I knew my rhythm. I knew what I was capable of and I delivered.
But time is cruel. The game never stops evolving. And neither does life. Since 2022, I had stepped away as caught up with other things, detached from the screen. The world moved forward. The meta changed. Updates came and went. My gear aged. My hands got slower. But something in me never let it go. Even in silence, the game’s heartbeat was faint in the background. A whisper, reminding me of who I once was.
And so I returned. I downloaded the game again and this time, not through Garena, but the Global version under Activision. A fresh start, I thought. A new challenge. Maybe even a rebirth. But what I found wasn’t a homecoming. It was a collision.
Suddenly, I wasn’t matched with familiar Southeast Asian players. I was thrown into the deep end North Americans, Europeans, Middle Easterners, Indians, all sharp, sweaty, relentless. They moved like lightning, snapped to targets without hesitation, jumped corners, cancelled slides, hit wallbangs like it was routine. And there I was, fingers fumbling, muscle memory fading, trying to remember how I used to play trying to become who I used to be.
It wasn’t just the rust in my skill. It was the weight of the game itself. Global CODM is no longer the lean, fast game it used to be. It’s heavier, more graphically intensive, full of new systems and overlays and content that push older devices to the brink. The loadout system is more complicated. The gun stats are deeper. The skill ceiling has been raised. And worst of all, the bar to entry has been silently lifted out of reach especially for players like me on outdated tech. Now It somehow become more and more like Warzone [The PC Version].
I wasn’t using a flagship phone anymore. My hands now held Tecno and Realme phones, powered by Helio G23 processors—one on Android 9, one on Android 13. And they struggled. Not a little. A lot. The lag was real. Frame drops shattered the flow. Load times dragged. Gunfights became guesswork. When you die not because you were outplayed, but because your device stutters and you feel it in your soul. It’s like watching your past self drift further and further away, while you claw hopelessly at the frame buffer, trying to keep up.
I hoped maybe I could escape this trap with GameLoop the official PC emulator from Tencent and Activision. A keyboard and mouse should give me the edge, right? I could at least compensate for my device’s shortcomings. That was the plan.
But reality had other ideas. I set it up on an old Dell monitor, built in 2012, with a 17" screen. It doesn’t even display full screen properly. Parts of the HUD get cut off. Corners stretch weirdly. My field of view feels like looking through a keyhole in a firefight. It was already difficult. Now it was suffocating.
Even worse, I was running it on a machine with a Ryzen 5 5500 and an RX 580 which a combo that, by specs alone, should handle CODM without a sweat. But somehow… it lags. It stutters. My response time feels delayed, like I’m piloting through syrup. I press to shoot and the shot hesitates. I slide and it jitters. It isn’t smooth. It isn’t natural. And every death feels not like a mistake, but a reminder that my setup can’t keep up. Maybe my skill is rusty?
Then comes the emotional punch: I can’t grind like I used to. I can’t level up fast. I can’t get kill streaks consistently. Whether on mobile or PC, my hand skill has rusted, and that rust doesn't care about how much I want to be sharp again. It only knows what is: I’m behind, and it shows.
And what breaks me more than the lag or the bad K/D… is the voice that creeps in quietly after a bad match.
The one that says, "Maybe you’re not that good anymore."
"Maybe you're not meant to come back."
"Maybe it's time to move on."
That thought haunts me.
And sometimes, I start to believe it.
Sometimes I sit there staring at the lobby screen, hands still, mind flooded with a strange mix of rage and sadness. A quiet, disorienting grief for a version of myself that I can’t seem to reach. And in those moments, I wonder if uninstalling would bring peace.
But I don’t.
I can’t.
Because for all the pain, for all the technical setbacks, I still love this game. I love its sound. Its rhythm. Its beauty in motion when everything clicks—even if it only clicks once a night now. I still feel something powerful when I get a clean kill. I still smile when I drop a quick double in Hardpoint. I still chase the rush of a perfect streak, even if my chances of reaching it are slimmer than they used to be.
CODM isn’t just a game for me anymore. It’s something deeper.
It’s a battlefield not just of bullets and tactics, but of memory and identity.
It’s where I once proved myself. It’s where I still hope to find myself again.
I don’t play to show off anymore. I don’t play to climb. I play to return to reclaim something I lost. Not trophies or stats, but a connection to a time when I felt capable, fast, and alive inside digital warzones.
That version of me is still out there. He hasn’t died. He’s just buried under lag, setbacks, and time.
And I’m not quitting until I find him.
Not when I’ve come this far.
Not when every loss still teaches me something.
Not when, even now, the spark is still flickering beneath the ash.
No, this isn’t a comeback story. Not yet.
This is the middle of the storm. The part where most people quit.
But I’m not most people.
And one day, one match , I will drop that 20 bomb again.
Not as proof to the world.
But as proof to myself.
That the fire is still real.
That the warrior still breathes.
And that the rust?
The rust was just a phase.
Tags
Rant