Call of Duty: Warzone, alongside recent and upcoming Call of Duty games, will from here on be using a brand new Ricochet anti-cheat system.
According to an announcement made earlier today, the Ricochet anti-cheat system has been designed by publisher Activision as “a multi-faceted approach to combat cheating” in the Call of Duty franchise.
The robust and Call of Duty-tailored anti-cheat features “new server-side tools which monitor analytics to identify cheating, enhanced investigation processes to stamp out cheaters, updates to strengthen account security, and more.”
Importantly, the Ricochet anti-cheat system will run on PC as a kernel-level driver every time (and only when) players launch Warzone. The driver will check all software and applications running in the background of the operating system to weed out anything which players may be using to enable cheats in the game.
Launching the kernel-level driver with Warzone will be mandatory, which might be a cause of concern for players wondering about their privacy. Activision has assured that Ricochet “turns on when you start Call of Duty: Warzone and shuts down when you close the game. Plus, the kernel-level driver only monitors and reports activity related to Call of Duty.”
Ricochet will launch alongside Call of Duty: Vanguard on November 5, 2021. The anti-cheat will then launch for Warzone with the Pacific update afterwards. It is entirely possible that the anti-cheat will then be extended to cover Modern Warfare and Black Ops Cold War once the initial roll-outs are done.
Call of Duty: Warzone has been a haven for cheaters since its launch. The frustrating state of the game has already seen numerous streamers and content creators switch to other games like Apex Legends while calling out Activision to take stern actions.
Ricochet hence comes as a blessing for the community provided that it really does work.
