For as long as online Call of Duty has existed, players have been relentlessly contending with cheaters. Never has this been more prevalant than in Warzone and its sequel. With the game being free-to-play, there’s fewer barriers preventing bad actors from entering matches.
In an attempt to curb the wave of cheaters and hackers, Activision introduced its own anti-cheat measures in the form of RICOCHET. The system was introduced back in Call of Duty: Vanguard, and has since been rolled out across Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2. The RICOCHET Anti-Cheat system operates as a kernel-level driver, able to monitor and manage software and applications on a PC. It monitors any attemp to interact and manipulate Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone, allowing Team RICOCHET to gather more data to improve its security.
As a result, a number of ban waves have been enacted across the Call of Duty games, resulting in the removal of hacking accounts. As of June 16, 2023, Activision has confirmed that another ban wave has taken place, this time banning over 1,500 accounts.
1,500 Cheaters Banned In Modern Warfare 2 & Warzone 2
The bans were announced in a Tweet via the Call of Duty Updates page:
Today, #TeamRICOCHET executed a ban wave that impacted over 1,500 accounts across Modern Warfare II and Warzone for cheating and hacking offenses.
While the removal of cheaters is always a welcome move in Call of Duty, some players were quick to point out that the number seemed a little low — particularly compared to the number of accounts banned during Vanguard.
One user said, “I wonder how popular the game is if this is how many cheaters are banned compared to the 100,000 you banned from Verdansk…”
Regardless of how many cheaters have been banned during this wave, players can at least take some comfort in knowing that Activision remain committed to stamping out the problem. That said, players are still calling out for the developers to fix a persistent issue with shadowbanning, with players feeling that they’ve been wrongly punished by the game’s security system.