If you've spent any time in the world of Call of Duty over the past few years, you've likely run into the conversation around cheating — or worse — cheaters themselves. The reality is, cheating has become a familiar problem across multiplayer games, and Call of Duty is no exception. It's a topic that sparks heated debate, but it raises an important question: what is Activision doing to fight back?

Lately, Activision has really stepped up its enforcement — targeting cheats at the source, continuing to refine its anti-cheat system, and taking new measures to protect players from bad actors. But is it enough? That depends on who you ask. Either way, Activision doesn't seem ready to slow down its assault anytime soon.

What Is Activision Doing To Stop Cheaters in Call Of Duty?

Since launching RICOCHET Anti-Cheat in 2021 alongside Call of Duty: Vanguard, Activision has invested significant time and resources into stopping cheaters in their tracks, something it continues to highlight through frequent progress reports and updates. So, where do things stand now?

Targeting Cheats at the Source

If you've been keeping up with the Call of Duty scene, you might've heard rumblings about cheat providers shutting down. As it turns out, it wasn't just talk — Activision confirmed in its Anti-Cheat Update for Season 03 of Black Ops 6 and Warzone that over 20 cheat developers and dozens of resellers have been forced out of business.

It's not just sending cease-and-desist letters, either. It's filing (and winning) lawsuits against some of the most prolific offenders. If I were a cheat provider, hearing this news would definitely make me think twice about whether offering cheats for Call of Duty is worth the risk of becoming Activision's next target.

As the saying goes, "cut it off at the knees." If there's nowhere to get cheats, it becomes significantly harder for prospective cheaters to act. When cheats are easy to access, feelings like curiosity or frustration can turn a once-innocent player into a rule-breaker. But when the supply dries up, those same players have to go to much greater lengths if they want to get one over on their fellow competitors.

Detecting and Disrupting Cheaters

When it comes to stopping cheaters directly, Activision deploys a variety of tactics, but it all stems from its proprietary system: RICOCHET Anti-Cheat. Described by Activision as a "multi-faceted approach to combat cheating," RICOCHET combines kernel-level monitoring, server-side analytics, advanced detection techniques, and more to catch cheaters and minimize their impact in real time.

One of the more ingenious aspects of RICOCHET is its in-game mitigations — clever deterrents designed not only to protect legitimate players, but also ruin the experience for those who'd rather cheat than play fair. These include:

• Damage Shield: grants fair players a protective barrier against cheater-inflicted damage
• Cloaking: makes legitimate players invisible to flagged cheaters
• Disarm: strips cheaters of their weapons and equipment
• Hallucinations: spawns decoy characters only visible to cheaters
• Splat: disables the cheater's parachute mid-air, sending them plummeting to their demise

While they might sound silly on the surface, these mitigations serve a dual purpose: they actively neutralize cheaters and protect innocent players, all while keeping bad actors in-game just long enough for RICOCHET to collect additional data from the compromised account and device.

Mitigations like Splat tend to get the spotlight, and deservingly so (I mean, who doesn't love seeing a cheater crash to their death?), but these quirky mechanics are just the tip of the iceberg. Team RICOCHET leverages replay review systems, aimbot detection algorithms, machine learning, shadowban lobbies, player reporting, SMS verification, two-factor authentication, and more classified methods to identify, isolate, and deject cheaters, all in an attempt to make cheating so inconvenient that it simply isn't worth the effort.

How Activision Is Protecting Players From Cheaters In Call Of Duty

While many games leave you to fend for yourself against cheaters, Activision takes extra steps to tip the odds back in the players' favor — not the cheaters. It uses in-game mitigations to empower honest players, but it also takes action after the fact, adjusting Skill Rating (SR) in Ranked Play and working to keep as many cheaters as possible off the leaderboards.

Retroactive Skill Rating Adjustments in Ranked Play

Sure, banning cheaters is cool and all, but it doesn't undo the damage they've already caused. Starting in Season 03 of Black Ops 6 and Warzone, Activision is addressing that issue with SR refunds in Ranked Play. If someone you lost to ends up banned for cheating, you'll get that SR back. On the flip side, players who were on the cheater's team may lose their SR from those wins.

Punishing Teamers and Removing Offenders from the Leaderboards

To further protect the competitive integrity of Ranked Play, Activision is also scrubbing the leaderboards in the lead-up to Season 03. Any accounts that earned SR illegitimately — whether through cheating or by partying with a cheater (aka boosting) — will be removed. According to Team RICOCHET, going forward, any account banned from Call of Duty will be promptly purged from the leaderboards.

The State Of Cheating In Call Of Duty: Is It Really That Bad?

Activision loves to boast about the number of cheaters it's banning, but from the average player's perspective, it often feels like it's trying to empty the ocean with a bucket. For every cheater that gets removed, two more seem to pop up. What's the real story here?

Stats vs. Sentiment

In addition to shutting down more than 20 cheat developers and dozens of resellers, Team RICOCHET has handed out over 228,000 bans since Black Ops 6 launched on October 25, 2024. Even more impressively, 23% of those bans were issued before the cheaters played a single match.

With numbers like that, you'd think the community would be thrilled…right? Unfortunately, the mood tells a different story. If your only exposure to the game came from Twitch streams, Twitter threads, or Reddit posts, you'd probably assume nothing is being done at all.

veryday players, streamers, and even pros were openly voicing their discontent, questioning whether anything was actually improving. That mounting pressure may have contributed to Activision's announcement that anti-cheat efforts would be ramping up in Season 03.

The situation has created a climate of constant suspicion. High-profile players — like longtime streamer Symfuhny and even Super Bowl champion DeVonta Smith — have faced viral cheating accusations that damaged their reputations, despite little to no solid evidence. After years of dealing with seemingly unchecked cheating, many players have become overly skeptical and are quick to assume foul play at every turn.

To be fair, the community's skepticism isn't baseless. Many would agree that Season 01 and most of Season 02 were failures in terms of cheat prevention. And when you stack RICOCHET Anti-Cheat up against what companies like Riot are doing, it's understandable to wonder whether Activision is really doing everything it can.

With a massive free-to-play title like Warzone and a competitive scene that includes real money on the line, Call of Duty will always be a prime target for cheaters. RICOCHET has been around for a few years, and Activision has been consistent about releasing updates and progress reports. The results so far have been mixed, but hopefully, the latest upgrades announced for Season 03 mark a turning point.

The Prevalence of False Reports and how Activision Plans to Curb Them

While the public outcry may make it seem like cheating is an epidemic in Call of Duty, Activision has shared data that challenges that perception. According to Team RICOCHET, the majority of in-game player reports are actually inaccurate. For instance, over 60% of cheater reports in Warzone were against console players, yet console players make up a very small percentage of confirmed cheaters.

Rather than pointing fingers and accusing the community of abusing the report system, Team RICOCHET believes the issue is simply confusion: namely, intel advantages. Perks like Recon Scout and killstreaks like UAVs can give enemies legitimate information, leading players to mistakenly assume they were tracked by a cheater.

To help reduce these false accusations and provide more clarity, Activision is updating the KillCam. Starting in Season 03, KillCams will now display detailed combat context, including:

• List of attackers: names, weapons used, damage dealt, and number of hits
• Affected by Live Ping: indicates if your position was revealed through line-of-sight pings
• Affected by UAV: shows if your location was visible on the minimap due to UAV, UAV Tower, or Advanced UAV
• Affected by Unsuppressed Weapon: confirms if firing an unsuppressed weapon exposed your location

Additional updates are planned to show even more gameplay elements, like equipment, killstreaks, field upgrades, contracts, perks, and more, all in the name of transparency and helping players make sense of how the final moments of the fight played out.

The Future Of Anti-Cheat In Call Of Duty

Activision isn't approaching anti-cheat haphazardly; it's laid out a clear roadmap with specific goals and ongoing system updates. But even with a plan in place, it's a long-term fight. Cheaters evolve and adapt, so the preventative measures must constantly stay one step ahead.

Activision's Promise to Continue Combating Cheaters

Team RICOCHET has stated that their mission is to fight unfair play by any means necessary, with the ultimate goal of protecting the game and its players from cheaters. Throughout the history of RICOCHET Anti-Cheat, both Team RICOCHET and Activision have repeatedly reinforced their commitment to gameplay integrity and their determination to stay ahead of those who try to undermine it.

The Never-Ending Anti-Cheat Arms Race

No one can be blamed for questioning the effectiveness of RICOCHET Anti-Cheat, because the reality is, this is a never-ending arms race. Activision makes a move, cheat developers respond. It's the classic cat-and-mouse dynamic that defines anti-cheat development across the industry.

You can argue whether Activision is doing enough, but one thing is clear: it's more transparent than most. Team RICOCHET regularly releases progress reports, backed by real data and statistics, giving players a behind-the-scenes look at their ongoing efforts. Still, it's always going to be an uphill battle.

But the fight is far from over. Right now, it might feel like the cheaters have the upper hand, but if Activision keeps its foot on the gas, it might just win the war.