Activision has taken significant steps to address the ongoing issue of cheating within the Call of Duty community, particularly in Black Ops 6 and Warzone. In response to widespread complaints, the company has announced plans to allow console players in Ranked Play to disable crossplay with PC players, a move aimed at curbing the perceived higher incidence of cheating on PC.
Cheating has been a major concern for hardcore Call of Duty fans since the introduction of Ranked Play in Black Ops 6 and Warzone with the launch of Season 1 last year. Many players felt that the presence of cheaters was undermining the competitive integrity of multiplayer modes, leading to criticism of Activision's initial response to the problem.
Last month, Activision's Team Ricochet, the team behind the Call of Duty anti-cheat technology, acknowledged that their efforts at the launch of Season 1 were insufficient. "After a series of updates our systems are in a better place today across all modes; however, we did not hit the mark for the integration of Ricochet Anti-Cheat at the launch of Season 01 — particularly for Ranked Play," they admitted.
In a recent blog post, Activision detailed its strategy to combat cheating in Call of Duty throughout 2025. The company reported issuing over 136,000 account bans in Ranked Play since its inception. With the upcoming Season 2, Activision plans to introduce enhanced client and server-side detection systems, along with a significant update to the kernel-level driver. Looking ahead to Season 3 and beyond, the company teased "a multitude of new tech," including a novel system designed to authenticate legitimate players and target cheaters, though specifics were withheld to avoid tipping off cheat developers.
Starting with Season 2, console players will have the option to disable crossplay in Black Ops 6 and Warzone Ranked Play, allowing them to compete solely against other console players. This feature, long utilized by console players in standard Multiplayer to avoid PC-based cheating, will now extend to Ranked Play. "We'll be monitoring closely and will consider further changes to prioritize the integrity of the ecosystem, and we’ll have more details to share as we get closer to the launch of this feature," Activision stated.
Despite these efforts, Activision's anti-cheat updates often face skepticism from the community. Cheating, while not exclusive to Call of Duty, has been a persistent issue for Activision, especially since the launch of the free-to-play Warzone in 2020. The company has invested heavily in anti-cheat technology and legal action against cheat developers, achieving several notable victories in court.
Ahead of Black Ops 6's release in October, Activision set a goal to remove cheaters from the game within an hour of their first match. The game launched with an updated kernel-level driver for Ricochet, alongside new machine-learning systems designed to quickly detect and analyze gameplay to combat aim bots.
"The people behind cheats are organized, illegal groups that pick apart every piece of data within our games to look for some way to make cheating possible," Activision explained. "These bad guys are not just some script kiddies poking around with code they found online. They are a collective who profit from exploiting the hard work of game developers across the industry. But cheat developers are flawed (clearly — they have to pretend to be good at video games). Every time they cheat, they leave breadcrumbs behind. We’re always looking for those breadcrumbs to find the bad actors and get them out of the game."
