The single biggest issue plaguing Call of Duty over the past few years will never receive a permanent fix, but that’s not stopping Activision from doing whatever it can to mitigate it.
If you’ve run into blatant cheaters or hackers in Black Ops 6 or Warzone, you’re definitely not alone. CoD social media pages are constantly overrun with players complaining about the problem, despite Activision’s RICOCHET Anti-Cheat efforts, and the harsh truth is that cheaters will never fully go away for good. Whenever RICOCHET receives an update to patch up one hack, another one seems to pop up, and then more, at an alarming rate. And so, Activision’s anti-cheat team has been supplemented by its legal services as the company aims to shut down cheat providers for good.
Activision has been wielding the law to issue cease and desist orders against cheat creators for years, but the battle seems more important than ever ahead of the return of Warzone’s OG map Verdansk, coming in season three of BO6 next month.
The latest takedown was for cheat provider SoloQ Services, which announced on its Discord server (yes, hackers like to gather and share their “achievements”) that Activision sent a cease and desist to its creators.
“Recently, I received a legal notice from Activision regarding the sale and distribution of certain software services related to Call of Duty,” they said in a Discord message. “After reviewing the matter carefully, I have made the decision to fully comply with their demands and discontinue all activities related to this.”
That’s a lot of words to say “Activision wants to sue me into oblivion, so I’m closing up shop.”
And really, Activision’s legal power is its best weapon in this war against hackers. If RICOCHET Anti-Cheat can’t keep up with detecting and banning cheaters, which it has shown that it can’t and has become an ongoing problem, then Activision needs to flex its monetary muscle and use its high-powered attorneys to shut this garbage down at the source.
CoD players are absolutely within their right to be furious every time they get shot through a wall or taken down by a spinbot player spinning in circles and instantly killing them from across the map. It’s embarrassing that it continues to happen in this game that is the highest-selling franchise year in and year out.
But I also don’t envy those who are trying to keep RICOCHET ahead of the curve of developers who are constantly working on making new cheats to circumvent the system so they can make a quick buck off of players who need to cheat to win in games, thus entirely ruining the experience for normal everyday gamers like the majority of us.
Season three of BO6 and the return of Verdansk feels like it needs to be a major turning point in the battle against hackers. It’s an exciting time for many, especially considering the game recently increased its lobby count to 150 and will reportedly bring back a number of classic Warzone features and favorite weapons.
But if the droves of players coming back to experience the nostalgia of Warzone’s launch in 2020 are instantly met with players who are cheating, then the war against hackers may have already been won.
Activision delayed season three by two weeks and it will now launch on April 3. If those two weeks aren’t utilized to make some serious headway to combat hackers, or whatever is the latest tool they’re using to suck the fun from everyone else, then the future of Warzone could be bleak.
Published: Mar 7, 2025 11:57 am