Activision wants Call of Duty: Warzone players to know that it’s taking the game’s major cheating problem seriously. That’s the message behind a new blog post from the publisher after weeks of player complaints calling for a crackdown on cheating. In addition to confirming today’s ban wave of over 60,000 accounts, Activision stated that Warzone does, indeed, have its own “internal anti-cheat software.”
That may seem obvious for a huge game with millions of players, but Activision has never said as much before today. We know from an update back in April 2020 that security teams worked 24/7 to detect and squash new cheats, but Warzone doesn’t use any popular third-party anti-cheat software (such as BattleEye or Easy Anti-Cheat) as many other multiplayer games do. That fact has made players skeptical of Activision’s capacity to tackle malicious software, especially as cheating in Warzone has become so prolific in recent months. Now we know that Activision has opted for a similar route as Riot Games did with Valorant, developing its own in-house anti-cheat software.
We have zero tolerance for cheaters across Call of Duty and Warzone.60,000+ accounts have been banned today. Follow @RavenSoftware for more #Warzone updates.Details here: https://t.co/d6De7tY3AB pic.twitter.com/fOGTJ43b8UFebruary 2, 2021
Unlike Riot, which has promoted its controversial anti-cheat tech as an important feature of Valorant, Activision isn’t saying much about its own solution. It took this long for the publisher to even confirm it exists, so that’s not too surprising. Today’s ban wave is an encouraging note to accompany the news, though. Activision also shared a list of other anti-cheat actions it has taken since Warzone’s launch:
- Weekly backend security updates
- Improved in-game reporting mechanisms
- Added 2-factor authentication, which has invalidated over 180,000 suspect accounts
- Eliminated numerous unauthorized third party software providers
- Increased dedicated teams and resources across software development, engineering, data science, legal and monitoring
On somewhat related note, Activision took this opportunity to confirm that Raven Software is, indeed, the new source to look to for future Warzone updates. “For Warzone communications, the Warzone development team at Raven Software will take the lead on sharing updates going forward. We will provide monthly updates at a minimum, and when possible, weekly updates to the community,” the post reads.
The statement stops short of clarifying what exactly is Infinity Ward’s role in Warzone’s development moving forward, if any. If Infinity Ward is still working on Warzone in some capacity, it’s probably safe to assume work has also begun on the studio’s next big project now a full year removed from Modern Warfare.