Anti-cheat may be Call of Duty’s ace in the hole

This story about combating cheaters, boiled down, in 1:20 minutes.

What’s the fuss?

Call of Duty’s battle royale is one step closer to becoming cheater-free. With the competition breathing down their necks, only time will tell if this is enough to maintain their impressive player base.

The situation

With battle royale games being as trendy as they are, it was only a matter of time until the 3rd biggest gaming franchise of all time made their own.

• Released in early 2020, Call of Duty Warzone has taken the world by storm as one of the most popular games in recent memory.
• Such popularity has attracted numerous cheaters that have spoiled the fun for many, threatening the game’s longevity as players quit out of frustration.

The game’s developer recently revealed their official plans to combat their pervasive cheating problem.

• Entitled Ricochet Anti-Cheat, this software will provide analytical tools to better detect cheating as well as a kernel-level driver that will automatically block 3rd-party cheat programs.
• The anti-cheat suite will release later this year alongside Call of Duty’s next game.

Boiling it down

Cheating in multiplayer games is prevalent in PC gaming, much more so than console gaming (i.e. on Xbox or PlayStation).

• Given that PCs provide much more freedom when it comes to development, its relatively easy for gamers to find cheat programs online and implement them into their games.
• The cheating problem is compounded with the advent of crossplay (i.e. when games allow players on different systems to play with each other), meaning that console gamers are affected by cheats as well.

In a year where Call of Duty is facing more competition than ever, the timing of this announcement certainly is interesting.

• With heavy hitters Halo Infinite and Battlefield 2042 set to release this year, this new anti-cheat system may be Call of Duty’s ace in the hole to incentivize their current player base to stick around.

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