Call of Duty: Vanguard & Warzone unveil new Ricochet anti-cheat system

Call of Duty: Vanguard and Call of Duty: Warzone are to get an all new anti-cheat system known as Ricochet, it’s been announced.

As per the announcement, Ricochet Anti Cheat is a “multi-faceted approach” to try and tackle cheaters. It includes server-side tools to monitor data from games, enhanced investigation processes, account security updates and more. A major part is a kernel-level driver on PC which will launch with Call of Duty: Warzone as part of its upcoming Pacific update. It will then launch for Call of Duty: Vanguard “at a later date”.

While the driver is primarily for PC, Activision claim console players with crossplay active will also benefit as a result.  The driver will work by monitoring software and applications that attempt to interact with the game. However, in the interest of protecting player privacy, it’ll turn on only when playing and only monitors and reports activity related to Call of Duty.

The driver is only a small part of the Ricochet scheme, Activision stresses. Reports from Call of Duty players will remain a key weapon in the battle against cheaters. Activision also say players should still use two-factor authentication to secure their accounts. Machine learning algorithms will also examine data to identify suspicious behaviour trends on the server side of things too.

Cheating has been a major issue for Call of Duty over the years, with Raven Software announcing it had banned over half a million cheater accounts back in May. You can read a full breakdown of the Call of Duty Ricochet Anti Cheat here, and there’s an FAQ over here.

Call of Duty: Vanguard, meanwhile, lands on November 11 on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4 and PC.