Warzone leaks reveal the best possible change at the worst possible time
Could a substantial anti-cheat solution finally be on the way?
A major cheating problem has plagued Call of Duty: Warzone since its March 2020 launch, and it has only gotten worse over time.
Despite Activision and Raven Software banning hundreds of thousands of accounts, the cheaters keep coming back — due to Warzone being free-to-play. However, credible leakers from the Call of Duty community seem to have intel that an anti-cheat solution has been in the works for over a year and will be implemented as early as the launch of Season 5.
If true, it’s been a long time coming. And it couldn’t be happening at a better time for a company currently in the spotlight for all kinds of workplace misconduct.
While this has yet to be confirmed by Activision, it’s likely these claims have some degree of validity, especially since Raven itself vaguely acknowledged August 11, 2021 that a solution is in the works:
“Today we banned over 50,000 accounts in Warzone. More importantly, we are listening and hard at work behind the scenes. We will have more info for you soon.”
The implementation of a new anti-cheat system would be a huge win for Warzone, as many players — including influencers — have quit the game due to the sheer number of hackers that won’t stop ruining the fun for others.
Anti-cheat may have been in the works for over a year
Credible leaker Tom Henderson says the anti-cheat software has been in the works for over a year.
According to leakers Tom Henderson and Twitter user @TheGhostofHope, an anti-cheat system has been in the works for a while and will be added to Warzone soon. It could even happen during Season 5, which launches on August 13.
Henderson has a positive track record, confirming that Call of Duty 2021 (aka Vanguard) would be developed by Sledgehammer Games, which ended up being true. TheGhostofHope accurately revealed that Warzone’s Verdansk map would be nuked.
“A new anti-cheat system for the next Call of Duty title has been in development for over a year,” Henderson said on Twitter. “The same system will be implemented into Warzone.”
Following Henderson’s coverage of Call of Duty 2021, he noted that Activision requested that all of the Vanguard-related tweets be removed, further lending credence to the validity of his claims.
Cheaters and hackers have plagued Warzone since its launch
An effective anti-cheat system could be the positive boost Warzone and Activision need.
Cheating has become such a rampant problem in Warzone that it deserves extra attention. Popular content creators like CouRage, TimtheTatMan, and Drift0r (along with many others) have quit Warzone, citing the rampant hacker problem as one of the main reasons for their departure.
Despite bands in the tens or even hundreds of thousands, the problem has steadily gotten worse over the course of the game’s year-long life cycle. In the game’s current state, it’s common to run into one or several cheaters every few matches which is unacceptable given Warzone’s budget and popularity.
Even if players don’t encounter a cheater in a match, each gunfight lost raises suspicion, leading them to question every death. It ruins the fun and is a waste of time since standard battle royale matches in Warzone can last around 30 minutes if you make it until the end.
For this reason, many players have opted to only play on Rebirth Island, a smaller-scale version of Warzone’s battle royale mode but with 40 players instead of 150. These matches last half as long and are home to substantially fewer cheaters. Though, it’s still possible to encounter hackers/cheaters, so it’s not a sure-fire solution.
Banning players is not enough. From the perspective of Raven and Activision, sending out a tweet announcing that tens of thousands of players have been banned feels like a publicity stunt when proportionally it doesn’t make much of a dent in the grand scheme of things. The cheaters need to be blocked from entering in the first place, not just removed after they’re caught.
Given Activision’s lawsuit following the reports of workplace misconduct, you’d think the company would strive to garner as much goodwill from the community as possible. But since Warzone’s launch, the company has yet to fully acknowledge just how bad the cheater problem is, so it’s unclear what will end up happening in this regard.
What is clear is that unless a substantial cheater solution is implemented, Warzone might not be as relevant in the near future.
