November 5 saw the release of the long-awaited next installment in the Call of Duty series, and Activision immediately made it clear that cheaters have no place in the wartime first-person shooter. Call of Duty: Vanguard utilizes Ricochet, a new piece of anti-cheating technology that immediately raised red flags among the community due to its privacy-compromising kernel-level drivers. In Ricochet’s first progress report since the title’s launch, a curious new addition might have cheaters second-thinking their poor decisions.
The blog post mentions that players have been banned through Vanguard‘s launch, and in coordination with Sledgehammer, Ricochet is working to rid the title of exploits related to experience gains and unlockables. The more interesting piece of new information reads:
Extreme or repeated violations of the security policy – such as in-game cheating – may result in a permanent suspension of all accounts. Additionally, any attempt to hide, disguise, or obfuscate your identity or the identity of your hardware devices may also result in a permanent suspension.
Permanent suspensions for security infractions may now apply franchise wide, including Call of Duty: Vanguard as well as any past, present, and future titles in the Call of Duty franchise.
Over half a million cheaters have been banned from the 2020 free-to-play title Call of Duty: Warzone, but for everyone to be banned, another two seem to pop up. Warzone will be the first to receive the aforementioned kernel-level driver, with Vanguard getting the update sometime in the future. Activision has repeated time and time again that the controversial addition will only run when players are actively in-game, and the driver will be required to play.
It’s great to see Activision attempting to be tougher with their punishments, but it’s impossible to imagine cheaters being vanquished once and for all. Despite that, more power to ’em.
Call of Duty: Vanguard was released on November 5, 2021, for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. The game supports cross-play and cross-progression. If you’re enjoying it–or if you’ve enjoyed literally any Call of Duty game–you might want to think very seriously about engaging in risky in-game behavior.
