Call of Duty: Warzone is in desperate need of a fiery purge but which can hardly be asked from its present anti-cheat system. The popular battle royale game has been plagued with cheaters since its release and as far players are concerned, Warzone might not even have an anti-cheat since cheaters pretty much come and go as they please without any serious repercussions.
With the fourth season nearing its end, several popular streamers have started rallying against Warzone (via Vice) and more precisely, publisher Activision, because of the ongoing cheating issue.
While some streamers are calling it a day by quitting Warzone as soon as they are killed by cheaters, others are promoting alternatives like Apex Legends, at least until Activision finds a robust solution to keep cheaters at bay.
There has even been a call-out by streamers for Warzone to ditch its current anti-cheat for something like Vanguard which Valorant uses to ensure a clean playing field. Vanguard runs at the core of an operating system and has a certain level of access to system files, which can be a concern for privacy but does marvelously well to detect cheating software or files on a system running the game.
This is not the first time Warzone streamers have rallied together because of cheaters. Something similar happened earlier in the year when many streamers blasted Activision for ignoring the player-base and not improving the anti-cheat.
More than 500,000 accounts have been permanently banned in Warzone to date but which hardly means anything because of how players can always return with new accounts owing to the free-to-play game model.
For what it is worth, developer Raven Software promised back in February that it will be “stepping up anti-cheat efforts” by pushing frequent updates to the anti-cheat, deploying new cheat-detection technology, and dedicating additional resources to monitor and enforce “consistent and timely bans.”
Warzone streamers turning to Apex Legends holds a certain degree of irony. Apex Legends has recently been suffering from cheaters as well. Yesterday, developer Respawn Entertainment was stated to have “definitely put in some things” to help address the cheating situation going into the new season.
