Activision Blizzard introduces a new system for Ricochet Anti-Cheat that will strip weapons from cheaters in Call of Duty.
Most gamers who enjoy multiplayer first-person shooter titles agree that cheating is a nagging problem that has a negative effect, in some cases can even almost kill the game. That game completely. For example, just looking at the fate of Titanfall from Respawn has been permanently withdrawn from online stores after years of attacks by hackers and cheaters. One of the most damaged franchises by “magicians” is Call of Duty, with many games running at the same time and having millions of players. This is easily the ideal brand for hackers to create cheat software and cheaters using those software.
Activision has been aggressive against cheaters in Call of Duty games over the years but has had little notable success. Ricochet Anti-Cheat launched for Call of Duty: Warzone and Vanguard in early December 2021, and the company has also regularly released updates on the system’s performance. Shortly after its rollout, Activision announced that 50,000 Warzone players had been locked out of their accounts in just one day, and most recently, it was revealed that 90,000 cheaters had been removed from the game.
According to Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick, more than 250 million people have joined Call of Duty games in 2020, but as player counts increase, so does the corresponding number of cheats. Activision has released a progress report on the status of Ricochet Anti-Cheat and its changes both rolling out and coming soon. The new changes made to prevent cheaters in CoD games are Damage Shield, Cloaking and Disarm.
The first is the Damage Shield that was introduced in February and made it impossible for “mage” to deal serious damage to other players. The second is Cloaking, which makes Call of Duty players invisible to cheaters and was introduced in the April update. The newest system is called Disarm and will only work against players found to be cheating. cheat. When Ricochet Anti-Cheat detects someone is cheating in Call of Duty: Warzone or Vanguard, it disarms that player. This includes fists, which means cheaters can’t even do melee attacks.
Some gamers may wonder why the system doesn’t directly lock the cheaters’ accounts as soon as they are recognized from within the game. The progress report also answers this question, explaining that the purpose is to keep cheaters in the game for the system to analyze their tactics and develop countermeasures. An anti-fraud system is not a switch that simply locks an account. Instead, it acts like an anti-virus program that must constantly analyze changing situations and devise new containment measures.
When Ricochet launched in 2021, it didn’t get off to a great start. The proprietary Ricochet anti-cheat program appears to have been leaked to hackers, potentially rendering it useless. Even without that incident, Call of Duty cheaters mocked the system by creating usernames like “NiceAnticheat” and “@YesImHacking.” Activision Blizzard’s progress report says that since Ricochet Anti-Cheat launched last year, the company has seen both a significant drop in cheaters breaking into the game as well as seeing some notable crashes. Sorry, but it looks like they’ll still do their best to prevent future cheating.
See also: The Callisto Protocol uses ‘real-life horror and gore’ for inspiration