Activision Blizzard is currently facing serious ongoing allegations of harassment and mistreatment of marginalized workers. To learn more, please visit our timeline as well as our in-depth report on the subject.
Call of Duty is ramping up its anti-cheat effort in a big way when its kernel-level anti-cheat, Ricochet, in December and with it is updating its permanent ban policy to include all Call of Duty games past and future. That’s right, if you earn a permanent suspension now, you may be barred from playing future games in the series.
In a new Call of Duty blog post, the Ricochet anti-cheat team announced it is getting ready to deliver the kernel-level driver alongside the Call of Duty: Warzone Pacific update in December. As part of a policy update, the team announced that permanent suspensions will be more severe.
“Permanent suspensions for security infractions may now apply franchise-wide, including Call of Duty: Vanguard as well as any past, present, and future titles in the Call of Duty franchise,” states the blog post.
The Ricochet team could issue a permanent suspension for “extreme or repeated violations of the security policy,” as well as “any attempt to hide, disguise, or obfuscate your identity or the identity of your hardware devices.”
Cheating in the popular Call of Duty: Warzone battle royale game has been a serious problem, and Activision is taking a page from Riot’s book by introducing a kernel-level defense. Despite some potential security concerns, kernel-level anti-cheat like Riot’s Vanguard has proven effective and popular.
Activision looks to prevent serious offenders from even attempting to cheat with its new policy, especially since it could prevent a cheater from playing any Call of Duty game past or present.
For more, check out IGN’s review of Call of Duty: Vanguard or find out more about the upcoming Pacific update for Warzone which will include a brand new map.
Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.