Though Call of Duty: Warzone still massively popular, it’s a game that hasn’t been without its own set of problems. As a game-as-a-service title, Raven Software continues to update the game on an almost weekly basis, fixing various issues and adding new content to keep fans engaged.
The community has also been vocal when something goes wrong, whether it’s a new cosmetic skin for Roze causing issues, or a bug or glitch that ruins games. Nevertheless, war zone has had a long history of cheating and hacking, a problem that seemed to have been fixed when Activision announced and implemented a new anti-cheat system called Ricochet.
Following its addition to the game in late 2021, things seemed to have improved for war zone, with the cheat vendors closing, the 50,000 bans handed out to cheaters every day, and generally better games for all players. However, that success has seemingly been short-lived, as hackers and cheaters have resurfaced in the free-to-play experience, leaving regular players frustrated and searching for answers.
Following the release of Season 4 within Call of Duty: Warzone, players have seen an increase in cheating during matches. There have been multiple threads on reddit about the issues caused by cheating and how they seem to be increasing.
One of them, from the user ArchMageMagnus, indicated that out of 4 games played, they died in 3 of them because of someone who cheated, including a player who used a K31 sniper without sight and at long range, as well as another who used a Grau to remove them through a house.
Another GrieverXVII thread revealed that players track others through walls, auto-aim when aiming down the sights of the weapon, and more. Other comments have contributed their own stories, although the common thread of all of them is the players of war zone who question the effectiveness of Ricochet.
Many have theorized that hackers are using more subtle strategies to trick the system, toning down its settings to disguise things like the aimbot as simple aim assist. Most agree that Activision will never be able to fully control cheating or hacking on PC, and with crossplay enabled, it will trickle down to consoles as well.
Unfortunately, there hasn’t been much news from Activision regarding Ricochet after his February update. At the time, Activision acknowledged the rise in hackers, which it confirmed was frustrating, but vowed to continue the fight by updating Ricochet with new systems.