Activision’s online multiplayer titleCall of Duty: Warzonehas not had an easy time since it launched in March 2020. The game has been beset with a range of bugs, many of which greatly hamper a player’s enjoyment, and inundated with cheaters who have ruined the experience for more honest gamers. The problem has become so severe that many people, including popular content creators like Nickmercs and FaZe Kalei, temporarily stopped playing the game orsuggested that people switch fromWarzonetoApex Legendsinstead.
Warzoneisn’t the only entry in theCall of Dutyfranchise to experience a seemingly never-ending flow of cheaters, and Activision hasn’t sat idly by and let it happen. The publisher has successfully shut down the websites of a number of cheat resellers and stopped some creators from releasing their cheats entirely. Even after the introduction of the anti-cheat system Ricochet intoWarzoneandVanguardat the beginning of December,Activision filed a lawsuit againstWarzonecheat provider EngineOwning, seeking $2,500 for each violation.
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Ricochet is a multi-faceted anti-cheat system that targets cheaters in various ways. The software monitors analytics from the server side for cheat-like behavior, tracks and reports third-party software that interacts withWarzone,and also offers enhanced investigation processes. According to Activision, Ricochet has already been extremely effective, and the company announced that48,000WarzoneandVanguardcheaters were banned in a single daythanks to the new system. However, numbers like this have been touted before with other games, and yet players saw only a momentary improvement before the anti-cheat protocols were circumvented.
That seems to possibly be the case with Ricochet as well. Before the anti-cheat system was even implemented,Warzonecheaters were mocking Ricochetby changing their in-game usernames to things like “NiceAnticheat,” “@YesImHacking,” and “ITz-NoT-LUCK.” In October, the kernel driver code for Ricochet was leaked online, though Activision stated that the final version of the code would be different. However, some hackers have been able to bypass the system, perhaps thanks to the leaked code. A few viewers in Dr. Disrespect’s chat stated that, while they enjoyed a brief hacker-free period inWarzonewhen Ricochet was first launched, they have noticed a resurgence. Others affirmed that there are fewer cheaters than there used to be, and other viewers pointed out that no anti-cheat system is 100 percent foolproof.
Call of Duty: Warzoneis available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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