Activision has taken significant steps to address the rampant issue of cheating in *Call of Duty: Black Ops 6* and *Warzone*, which has been a major concern for the community, especially since the introduction of Ranked Play in Season 1. The outcry over cheating has been loud and clear, with many players feeling that it's undermining the competitive integrity of multiplayer modes. In response, Activision's Team Ricochet, the team behind the game's anti-cheat technology, acknowledged that their initial efforts fell short with the Season 1 launch. "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 admitted.
In a recent blog post, Activision detailed their strategy to combat cheating throughout 2025. They revealed that over 136,000 account bans have been issued in Ranked Play since its inception. With the upcoming Season 2, players can expect enhanced client and server-side detection systems, along with a crucial kernel-level driver update. Looking further ahead, Season 3 and beyond will introduce a host of new technologies, including a novel system designed to authenticate legitimate players while pinpointing cheaters. While specifics remain under wraps to prevent cheat developers from gaining an advantage, Activision's commitment to improving the gaming experience is evident.
One immediate change coming with Season 2 is the option for console players to disable crossplay in *Black Ops 6* and *Warzone* Ranked Play. Given that cheating is predominantly associated with PC players, console gamers have long opted out of crossplay in standard Multiplayer. Now, Ranked players will also have the choice to compete solely against other console users, potentially enhancing the fairness of the competition. "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 stated.
Despite these efforts, skepticism remains among the *Call of Duty* community, a sentiment that's not surprising given the game's history with cheating issues, especially since the launch of the free-to-play *Warzone* in 2020. Activision has invested heavily in anti-cheat technology and legal actions against cheat creators, with several high-profile victories recently. In the lead-up to *Black Ops 6*, the company set an ambitious goal to remove cheaters from the game within an hour of their first match. The game launched with an updated Ricochet 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."
