The news about the expansive Call of Duty ban against cheaters is a casual reminder that some shortcuts are best left avoided. According to reports, Activision has banned over 65,000 accounts across Call of Duty: Warzone and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. The company had faced a minor issue with their detection system last week and many players had come out to report that they had witnessed a spike in cheaters after the launch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 season 5 and its immediate release on Game Pass on July 24, 2024. The issue has now been resolved, but the RICOCHET anti-cheat system has gone one step further to ban the offending players.

Call of Duty ban wave

Image: Season 5 Launch Trailer | Call of Duty: Warzone & Modern Warfare III

Details of the Call of Duty Cheater Ban Remain Shrouded In Some Mystery

The Call of Duty ban wave doesn’t come as a surprise. Ever since the Season 5 update, the reports of cheaters in Ranked Play and in the Casual lobbies began to cause a stir as many began to find their game unpleasantly ruined by these tactics. Performing well in the ranked games is a matter of pride for many, but it can be frustrating to see someone gain an unfair advantage despite your best efforts to make it to the top. Such behavior can drive users away from a game very easily, so it was in Activision’s best interest to hasten the MW3 and Warzone ban on players trying to exploit the system.

As a result, the RICOCHET anti-cheat system went into overdrive to address the matter. It didn’t take too long from them to report that it, or Activision to be more precise, had banned 65,000 accounts. The nature of the ban has not been elaborated on, but it is expected to have been a simple account ban rather than anything too dramatic. 

An IP ban, hardware ban, or other more significant barriers to re-entering the game are unlikely to have been rolled out, which means the offending players have rejoined the game already. An account ban would only truly hurt for those who have spent money in the game, but COD is well-established as a series that you don’t need to spend too much on in-game. Those who had resorted to cheating were undoubtedly prepared for this eventuality with low investment burner accounts. 

The rise of players cheating in the game appeared to coincide with the arrival of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 on Game Pass, and many claim it’s the PC players who are the cause of the problem. PC players have a bad rep among the community, and many COD players are in favor of a permanent block against crossplay that lets gamers across platforms play together. 

Activision bans 65000 accounts

Activision Reasserts Its Stance on Hacking and Cheating with the MW3 and Warzone Ban

The Call of Duty Security and Enforcement Policy clearly lays out warnings against the use of unauthorized software for cheating, modding, or hacking. Following a first offense users can be “permanently suspended from playing the game online, have their stats, emblems, and weapon customizations reset, and be blocked permanently from appearing in leaderboards. Users may also experience RICOCHET Anti-Cheat in-game mitigations.” 

It also goes on to say that PC users will be reported to the Battle.net enforcement team or other platforms the copy was acquired through such as Valve and Microsoft. Extreme or repeated violations of any part of the company policy could result in a permanent suspension of all accounts associated with the user, but it does not look like the latest round of the Call of Duty cheater ban entailed such a result. 

The Call of Duty ban wave is a good start, but many feel it’s entirely insufficient to address the issue. While Activision’s ban on 65,000 accounts sounds like a big deal, it barely accounts for the sizable chunk of daily players that log into the game.

Users on Reddit have also noticed that the number of Steam players barely shifted following the ban, which either means that new players joined the game around the same time as the Call of Duty ban wave, or that the banned players just made new accounts immediately. One is more likely than the other. 

The RICOCHET anti-cheat system in charge of dealing with the entire problem has frequently been accused of being insufficient to truly detect the entire spectrum of lawlessness that takes place within these games. 

What is the RICOCHET Anti-cheat System?

The Call of Duty ban on cheaters is being overseen by the RICOCHET anti-cheat system which has tools that help identify any attempt at cheating and take action against those found guilty. The anti-cheat system uses PC kernel-level drivers, which refer to “computer code that operates with high privileges on your computer, able to access all resources on your system while it is running.” Essentially, the system checks for applications that try to interact with and manipulate the COD games. 

Users do not have the option of opting out of using the system while playing the select COD games on their PC, which puts it a good place to continuously analyze the computer when the game is launched.

Ricochet anti-cheat system

Image: Everyone’s favorite—Rhea Ripley operator in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Warzone

Are Players Satisfied with the RICOCHET Anti-cheat System?

Gamers have frequently complained about being incorrectly shadowbanned from the game and have accused the anti-cheating system of being insufficient for combatting real cheating. It’s hard to tell whether the user complaints are valid or they’re a cover for actual unsavory practices, but considering that the system does take user complaints into account, it could well be a flood of users’ accusations causing the ban. 

In a blog post last year, Activision had provided some clarity on detecting abnormalities and triggering the mitigation process.

The game on your machine and our servers exchange information to operate a multiplayer match. As part of that process, info from that machine/server exchange splits off and feeds into the security pipeline in real-time for detection and investigation. The security team only steps in if we detect an abnormality.

Mitigation triggers do not consider you having the best game of your life as an abnormality. Similarly, if a wave of people submits malicious in-game reports about you, those reports can’t activate mitigations without additional corroboration. These processes do not function together in that way – and there’s a long list of ways we detect cheaters in real-time.

Despite these explanations, users online remain unsatisfied with the accuracy and effectiveness of this system.

What’s Next for Activision?

The system sounds good enough in theory and Activision’s ban on 65,000 accounts is undeniably a good sign. Players, however, don’t appear to think it’s enough to keep the hackers and cheaters away. There is no hope that any additional systems will step in anytime soon, so players have no choice but to accept the system as the best safeguard against cheating for now. This hasn’t been the first wave of Call of Duty cheater bans and it likely won’t be the last.

Activision has had a shaky reputation in the public eye ever since Microsoft’s acquisition of the company. A large number of employees were laid off and BlizzCon was also cancelled this year. Diablo 4 did receive some positive attention but most players are praying for a good experience to arrive with Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 later in October. The ban on cheating players should keep its audience calm for a while, but the company has a lot of expectations riding on it with its next game.

tagged in Activision bans 65000 accounts, Activision MW3 Warzone ban, Call of Duty ban wave, Call of Duty cheater ban, Ricochet anti-cheat system
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