Team Ricochet, in coordination with Sledgehammer Games, have introduced Call of Duty's brand new anti-cheat system with the release of Call of Duty: Vanguard. Here is the most up-to-date information.
Shortly after the successful launch of Call of Duty: Vanguard and its brand new anti-cheat system, dubbed "Ricochet", Team Ricochet released an update on how the program's going, and what's to come. In this article, we're going to keep you totally up-to-date with everything Ricochet in both Call of Duty: Vanguard and Warzone.
[Update 20/02/2022]
After cheaters briefly made fun of RICOCHET for still making it into the game, the anti-cheat now seems to be working better and better. We've already reported that wallhacks and aimbots don't seem to work anymore for many hackers and they don't do any damage, and it seems that RICOCHET now has even more nasty ways to annoy cheaters. According to some new reports, players targeted by an aimbot become invisible to the cheater and the hacks don't work anymore either:
AMAZING NEW #Warzone ANTI-CHEAT FEATURE:When a cheater shoots/locks on to a legit player, the legit player will become invisible to the cheater and their cheats will not work, view video to see:+ Follow @WarzoneInformer to stay tuned for the latest Warzone News. pic.twitter.com/q7b9o3IEPa
— Call of Duty WARZONE News (@WarzoneInformer) February 19, 2022
As you can see here, the Aimbot locks on to the player, but the player suddenly becomes invisible and also gets no damage. In our opinion, this is just fair. Whoever makes it into the game despite cheats should at least have absolutely no fun.
[Update 23/12/2021]
Now that RICOCHET has been active worldwide for a little over a week, Call of Duty has shared a first success report on Twitter. According to the official Twitter account, another 48,000 cheater accounts have been banned with the help of the new anti-cheat system.
48K cheater accounts were banned yesterday across #Warzone and #Vanguard thanks to #TeamRICOCHET. pic.twitter.com/CEnAUFwcvt
— Call of Duty (@CallofDuty) December 22, 2021
The new anti-cheat seems to actually work and be effective. However, we have only recently heard about so-called modded lobbies, so there is definitely still room for improvement.
[Update 15/12/2021]
Ricochet Goes Live Across Warzone
Ricochet is now live across all Warzone servers, and many hackers are finding they've been hardware banned. This is only the beginning, however, as the server-side machine learning feature to Ricochet will grow and improve with time as it colelcts more data. But it's a wonderful sight to see the new tech in action:
The state of the Cheaters in these days from CODWarzone
Let's all take a moment to enjoy that.
The Ricochet Teams Aims
The team behind Ricochet Anti-Cheat is continuing to monitor Call of Duty: Vanguard & Warzone, and have issued a number of bans already. In addition, Ricochet is currently focused on resolving XP and Unlocks-related exploits, and are encouraging players to report cheating behavior. According to the Call of Duty Blog, these reports will help Team Ricochet do the following:
- Identify and/or confirm cheaters
- Collect valuable information about cheating behavior
- Prioritize security enforcement
You can report cheating behavior to Ricochet Anti-Cheat and the Call of Duty team online, and it will significantly help the team improve the Call of Duty experience. We especially suggest that you do so during the next few weeks, to make sure that the Ricochet system can gather as much data as possibly early on.
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Changing the Ricochet Security Enforcement Policy
Team Ricochet have implemented changes to their enforcement policy, introducing perma-bans for players who repeatedly violate anti-cheating rules. This includes any individuals who make "any attempt to hide, disguise, or obfuscate" their identity, "or the identity of [their] hardware devices". This is a pretty serious change, especially considering that Call of Duty: Vanguard is not a free-to-play game, like Warzone, and thus there is a strong incentive against cheating, since players would need to re-purchase the game for real-world money, and even then, if they're hardware banned it won't run on their PC.
How Does Ricochet Anti-Cheat Work in Warzone?
A combination of server-side machine learning, and client side kernel-level drivers, that hardware bans offenders. According to this Call of Duty Blog post, the Ricochet Kernel-Level Driver for PC works in the following way:
The kernel-level driver for PC as part of the RICOCHET Anti-Cheat system monitors software or applications that attempt to interact with Call of Duty: Warzone... The driver will help the RICOCHET Anti-Cheat team to learn about suspicious behavior, using that data to strengthen overall anti-cheating security over time.
Activision have reassured players who feared that this kernel-level driver will impose security and privacy complications upon users. In the above-mentioned Blog Post, they outlined their statement on how the Ricochet Anti-Cheat system works, and why players should not be concerned for their privacy. This concern is based on the fact that kernel-level drivers look at other applications that are running on a players' system.
Team Ricochet have confirmed and reiterated that they are "focused on continuous anti-cheat security updates" and will continue to provide us with additional updates and information as this new anti-cheat system evolves into the future. Thus, we will also continue to update this article with everything you need to know, and all the latest information available on Warzone and Call of Duty: Vanguard's new Ricochet Anti-Cheat system.