Call of Duty’s RICOCHET anti-cheat team confirms ‘damage shield’ technique, rendering cheaters unable to kill other players

A new update from Activision’s Team RICOCHET, the Call of Duty anti-cheat task force, has confirmed that it sometimes disables a cheater’s ability to deal fatal damage to opponents.

Clips of aimbotting players dealing infinite damage without being able to finish off an enemy have been circulating across social media over the past few weeks, but this is the first confirmation of such a tactic being deployed by RICOCHET.

“One mitigation technique we’ve been testing is something we call Damage Shield,” RICOCHET said. “When the server detects a cheater is tampering with the game in real-time, it disables the cheater’s ability to inflict critical damage on other players. This mitigation leaves the cheater vulnerable to real players and allows #TeamRICOCHET to collect information about a cheater’s system. We track these encounters to ensure there is no possibility for the game to apply a Damage Shield randomly or by accident, no matter the skill level.  To be clear, we will never interfere in gunfights between law-abiding community members. Damage Shield is now out of testing and deployed across the globe.”

A season two update blog post from RICOCHET also revealed that it is making changes to its security enforcement policy for modern PC and console titles within the CoD universe, meaning punishments are going to get harsher.

“Going forward, extreme, or repeated violations of the security policy–such as in-game cheating–may result in a permanent suspension of all accounts,” RICOCHET said. “Additionally, any attempt to hide, disguise, or obfuscate your identity or the identity of your hardware devices may also result in a permanent suspension.”

RICOCHET also said that permanent suspensions for security infractions will apply in Modern Warfare, Black Ops Cold War, Warzone, and Vanguard, along with all future titles in the franchise.

“As time has progressed, cheat developers have looked for new ways to try to exploit the game,” Activision said in the blog post. “Some have succeeded, many have not. While a recent rise in cheating is not at the level it was during Verdansk, according to our data, any increase is frustrating. Our team is constantly monitoring and will continue every effort to prevent and combat this wherever possible. This back and forth is expected, and while anti-cheat is not a magic bullet, this is a battle we’re committed to fighting.”