Activision has taken significant steps to address the community's ongoing concerns about cheating in *Call of Duty: Black Ops 6* and *Warzone*, particularly since the introduction of Ranked Play in Season 1 last year. The issue of cheating has been a major point of contention among dedicated players, with many feeling that it undermines the competitive integrity of multiplayer modes. In response to criticism, Activision's Team Ricochet, the team behind the game's anti-cheat system, acknowledged that they fell short in preventing cheating at the launch of Season 1. "After a series of updates our systems are in a better place today across all modes; however, we did not hit the mark for the integration of Ricochet Anti-Cheat at the launch of Season 01 — particularly for Ranked Play," they stated last month.
In a recent blog post, Activision detailed its strategy to combat cheating in *Call of Duty* throughout 2025. They've already issued over 136,000 account bans in Ranked Play since its inception. With the upcoming Season 2, players can expect enhanced client and server-side detection systems, along with a significant update to the kernel-level driver. Looking ahead to Season 3 and beyond, Activision teased "a multitude of new tech," including a novel system designed to authenticate legitimate players and target cheaters more effectively. However, they've kept the specifics under wraps to avoid tipping off cheat developers.
Starting with Season 2, console players will have the option to disable crossplay in *Black Ops 6* and *Warzone* Ranked Play, allowing them to compete exclusively against other console users. This move is in response to the belief that cheating is more prevalent on PC, with many console players already opting out of crossplay in standard Multiplayer. "We'll be monitoring closely and will consider further changes to prioritize the integrity of the ecosystem, and we’ll have more details to share as we get closer to the launch of this feature," Activision noted.
Despite these efforts, the Call of Duty community remains skeptical about the effectiveness of anti-cheat measures. Cheating is not exclusive to *Call of Duty*, but it has significantly impacted Activision's reputation, especially since the rise of the free-to-play *Warzone* in 2020. The company has invested heavily in developing its anti-cheat technology and has also taken legal action against cheat makers, achieving several high-profile victories.
Ahead of *Black Ops 6*'s launch, Activision set a goal to remove cheaters from the game within one hour of their first match. *Black Ops 6* and *Warzone* were equipped with an updated version of Ricochet's kernel-level driver and new machine-learning systems designed to quickly detect and analyze gameplay to combat aim bots.
"The people behind cheats are organized, illegal groups that pick apart every piece of data within our games to look for some way to make cheating possible," Activision explained. "These bad guys are not just some script kiddies poking around with code they found online. They are a collective who profit from exploiting the hard work of game developers across the industry. But cheat developers are flawed (clearly — they have to pretend to be good at video games). Every time they cheat, they leave breadcrumbs behind. We’re always looking for those breadcrumbs to find the bad actors and get them out of the game."
