Call of Duty has officially unveiled their long-awaited anti-cheat initiative that has been developed specifically for the popular first-person shooter franchise. Named ricochet it will take a “multi-faceted approach” which has been designed to combat cheating using kernel-level monitors. It will be first implemented into the battle royal game Call of Duty: Warzone, and will be required in order to play the game on PC moving forward.
Cheating has become a rampant problem for competitive games, with the beta of the upcoming Call of Duty: Vanguard suffering from widespread cheating. Many of the people doing so ultimately intend the sell what they are calling ‘untraceable hacks upon release of the finished game. Another anticipated upcoming shooter, Battlefield 2042, is also expected to play host to widespread cheating upon its release as well.
It was during the media tour for Vanguard that Activision put forward the announcement that a dedicated anti-cheating measure would be put forward for Warzone and Vanguard. Now we finally get a deeper look at this measure. Ricochet utilizes a kernel-level driver and will operate similar to Riot’s unrelated Vanguard technology. Initially, Riot’s system was criticized due to needing kernel access to a computer. This opinion has softened due to upticks in cheating as this system has proven to be effective in combating the issue.
Activision is hoping for similar results here. In a recent FAQ regarding the technology, they stated that as cheating tools become more sophisticated, “A kernel-level driver allows for the monitoring of applications that may attempt to manipulate Call of Duty: Warzone game code, while it is running.”
Unlike user-level applications with limited access, kernel-level access will allow for more versatility when combating cheating. Richochet will not always be online, turning off when players exit Warzone. It is also only intended to examine programs that directly interact with Warzone. This is the strongest Anti-Cheat measure that Activision has implemented into the series thus far.
Previously it was also announced that bans players receive for Call of Duty: Warzone will carry over to Call of Duty: Vanguard and are more effective since these bans are against the player’s console and not their account.
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