Back in November, Activision published a rather hefty stance on cheaters prior to the release of Call of Duty: Vanguard. Anyone caught doing anything unsportsmanlike in either Vanguard or Warzone upon the implementation of Ricochet, a new anti-cheating software, could potentially be banned from all past, present, and future Call of Duty titles. Ricochet was rolled out last week, and the anti-cheat kernel-level driver is already swinging that ban hammer to the tune of 48,000 banned accounts across both titles. No, not over the span of a week–in one single day.
The Ricochet driver will be coming to Vanguard at a later date. Currently, it installs alongside a Warzone Pacific update on Battle.net, and for those thinking they can just skip it, think again–it’s required to play the game on PC. According to the software’s website, Ricochet only runs while the game is actively being played. As cheating software has become more sophisticated than ever, this driver will monitor any other applications running at the same time to ensure that nothing too fishy is going on.
Cheating has become a major problem in Call of Duty: Warzone over the past few years, with a number of high-profile streamers and content creators leaving the game for other titles like Apex Legends and Fortnite. It’s unclear whether Ricochet alone can solve the entire problem, but nearly 50,000 bans in a single day is a promising start.
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 has been criticized for its lack of innovation and short campaign. Call of Duty: Warzone is currently available to play on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. This April, Activision announced that the free-to-play battle royale had surpassed 100 million active players. In August, Activision stated that over 500,000 permabans had been issued since the title launched in March 2020.
