I remember a time when cheating was so rampant in Call of Duty games (Warzone, especially) that they became immensely unenjoyable. While the likelihood of bumping into cheaters these days is still fairly high, the introduction of Activision’s own Richochet anticheat has certainly improved the situation. With Black Ops 6 just a week away, I’ve been bracing for another influx of aimbotters and wallhackers, but so to has Activision as it has rolled out some pre-launch improvements to Ricochet and set itself an ambitious target: catch every cheater within an hour.
From what I’ve seen in the build up to the Black Ops 6 release date and played during its multiplayer beta in the summer, this new FPS game genuinely has the potential to be one of the best entries in the Call of Duty series for some time. However, even the fleeting beta had its fair share of issues with cheaters and Ricochet not working quite as intended, and that left me a little nervous. Black Ops 6 could deliver some amazing action, but if it’s plagued by grifters that rely more on illegal software than their thumbs, it’s going to be rough.
Activision has just eased my concerns for the time being with a new update on what’s going on with Ricochet. It says that in preparation for Black Ops 6 it has updated its kernel-level driver, introduced new machine-learning behavioural systems and detection models, and has more upgrades on the way for when Ranked Play arrives a little after launch in Season 1.
Because of all these improvements to Ricochet, Call of Duty’s anticheat team has set itself an impressive goal: “we want to catch and remove cheaters within one hour of them being in their first match.” What’s even more impressive is the fact that Treyarch was hitting this target already during the Black Ops 6 beta.
“Cheaters were able to complete around ten multiplayer matches during Weekend One before being removed. After tweaking our systems and deploying new detection methods for Weekend Two, we cut that time in half to five matches. That timing achieved our Time to Action goal. In fact, 25% of all Weekend Two bans happened during the first match a cheater ever played.”
It also reveals that it “stopped over 12,000 confirmed cheating accounts before they ever saw the inside of a match” during the beta. Not only is that statistic a good sign of things to come, it also gives you a sense of just how rife cheating in Call of Duty is right now. 12,000 people is a lot, and that’ll only be a fraction of the actual number.
I’m now super hopeful that my multiplayer experience in Black Ops 6 is going to be relatively cheater free – of course, the proof will be in roughly a week’s time when the game finally arrives, but Ricochet’s efficacy during the beta is certainly promising.
To make sure you’re battle-ready ahead of launch, check out our guide on all the Black Ops 6 modes and playlists you’ll be able to dive into. All you grinders out there should also get to know the new Black Ops 6 Prestige system.
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