Activision has taken decisive steps to address the ongoing concerns about cheating within the *Call of Duty* community, particularly in *Black Ops 6* and *Warzone*. Following intense scrutiny and complaints from players about the impact of cheating on competitive multiplayer, especially since the launch of Ranked Play last year, Activision has committed to enhancing its anti-cheat measures in 2025.

Last month, Activision's anti-cheat division, Team Ricochet, acknowledged shortcomings in the initial integration of the Ricochet Anti-Cheat system at the start of Season 1. "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," the company admitted.

In a recent blog post, Activision outlined its comprehensive strategy to combat cheating. Since the launch of Ranked Play, over 136,000 account bans have been issued. With the upcoming Season 2, Activision promises enhanced client and server-side detections, along with a significant kernel-level driver update. Looking further ahead, Season 3 and beyond will introduce a range of new technologies, including a novel system designed to authenticate legitimate players and target cheaters more effectively. While specifics on this new system remain under wraps to avoid tipping off cheat developers, Activision is clearly ramping up its efforts.

In a move to address immediate concerns, Season 2 will allow console players in *Black Ops 6* and *Warzone* Ranked Play to disable crossplay, enabling them to compete solely against other console players. This option has been a long-standing request from the community, given the perception that cheating is more prevalent among PC players. "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 hardcore *Call of Duty* fans, a sentiment fueled by the game's ongoing battle against cheating, particularly since the rise of the free-to-play *Warzone* in 2020. Activision has invested heavily in its anti-cheat technology and legal actions against cheat developers, achieving several high-profile victories recently.

Ahead of *Black Ops 6*'s launch, Activision set an ambitious goal to remove cheaters from the game within an hour of their first match. The game was released with an updated kernel-level driver for Ricochet, alongside new machine-learning behavioral systems aimed at quickly detecting and analyzing gameplay to counter 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."