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Call of Duty: Warzone is in desperate need of a proper and clarified anti-cheat system to prevent the influx of hackers as Activision seeks to develop the competitive future of the game.
Call of Duty: Warzone launched at great prices for fans in March 2020. It was the first free Call of Duty experience for consoles and PC. And that opened up the number of players who could enter the world of Call of Duty. There was no longer a $ 60 barrier to experience Call of Duty.
But with that, an influx of cheaters and hackers to the PC platform has burst into Call of Duty: Warzone. Since the game’s launch, there have been a large number of hackers in Call of Duty: Warzone on the PC platform. And along with cross-play, these hackers are infesting the PlayStation and Xbox lobbies as well.
The biggest problem has been: Activision’s lack of a concrete plan to deal with the hacking situation. The company released a few statements in 2020 about how it is tackling piracy in Call of Duty: Warzone, but none of them left fans with hope for a sustainable future for the title on PC.
It makes sense, in another way, that Call of Duty is infested with cheaters at a faster rate compared to other free Battle Royale games. Call of Duty is one of the biggest entertainment franchises available, and Warzone was the first chance that made it possible everyone to play Call of Duty. There have always been cheaters and hackers in Call of Duty MP. But it was on a more controllable scale with the $ 60 game. With Warzone, the barrier of entry is gone, and now hackers who could never hack Call of Duty before, can now. And with Activision’s lack of aggressive action in the game itself, it welcomes more on the pitch.
But aggressive action by Activision is needed to counter cheaters, and it is needed as soon as possible.
Activision’s responses to cheaters in 2020
The first big stance Activision took on cheaters came weeks after launch, when the company announced that over 50,000 hackers had been banned and said “cheaters weren’t welcome” in the world of Warzone. Activision said they take cheating “very seriously” and will work hard to maintain “a level playing field for all” as one of their “highest priorities”.
It hasn’t changed much. Hackers continued to thrive in the PC world of Warzone. And at the same time, Activision began to build its vision for a competitive future Warzone. They started it off with the Live From Warzone series, which featured tournaments and fan-run events for Warzone.
On April 24, 2020, Infinity Ward’s next big step: hackers would be match-made in the same lobbies only forward. They also said the studio “has increased its resources” to help alleviate the concerns of cheaters.
And then the worst statement ever was released on July 24, 2020: Infinity Ward kindly asked gamers not to use third-party software while playing Call of Duty: Warzone.
“Please do not use unauthorized third party software to modify or hackSaid an image statement from the studio, as shown below. They said they listed the items they believed to be considered hack / cheat, and failed to state what they themselves are doing to combat it.
Finally, the last update we received on the hacking issue with Warzone was in September 2020. Infinity Ward said it has banned 200,000 accounts since the game launched.
But 200,000 is not even enough. There are, according to Activision, over 90 million players who have played Call of Duty: Warzone. Only 200,000 banned accounts (this is the last official number of banned accounts that Activision has informed the public about).
Focused on the wrong thing
Now we’re going to give Activision some credit in some areas. The company has taken legal action against numerous cheat makers who were designing cheats for Call of Duty: Warzone.
The company has issued cease-and-desist orders to two cheat makers. The first was CXCheats, which received a stop and forbearance in August 2020. Once they were threatened by Activision, the site removed all of the Call of Duty: Warzone related cheats. And then in September, Activision filed another complaint against GatorCheats and even sent a representative to the owner. GatorCheats has removed all Warzone cheats from their site.
But the problem with cease and desist orders is that there are an endless number of companies that can create and manufacture cheats for gaming. Just because you take two out with legal action doesn’t mean more will appear. Activision probably thinks that threatening a few will stop a lot more, but it hasn’t. There is also a wide variety of online forums where players share the cheats they’ve created, and ones that are never posted or posted on an “ official ” cheat maker’s website.
The only real action Activision took on the public side, which was a major step for them, was to be able to detect EngineOwning cheats in Warzone. EngineOwning updated its website in September 2020 to indicate that Warzone cheaters were “ now detected ” by Activision and that more than 20,000 accounts have been banned.
This is what we need most: focusing on fixing the game itself, without trying to prevent cheats from being created on the manufacturing side. A comprehensive anti-cheat system is the best way for Activision to ensure that cheaters cannot continue in Warzone.
There will always be hackers and cheaters in every game, but having full anti-cheat software will be able to reduce the total number of hackers and help promote a more enjoyable gaming environment.
For example, Riot Game’s VALORANT FPS title has a comprehensive anti-cheat developed for it called Vanguard. Riot requires players to install Vanguard Anti-Cheat in order to play VALORANT on their PC. While some players may have made do with the software, it has kept the game from being infested with hackers, even though it is a free title.
Competitive integrity
The situation with anti-cheat and hackers has shifted to a higher gear on the competitive integrity side in recent months. Many top content creators have participated in Warzone competitions, some of which have prize pools thanks to Activision. And there are always hack suspects during these events, and Activision has yet to fix that.
The most recent example was the $ 250,000 Twitch Rivals tournament for Warzone. This tournament was held in a private lobby, which meant that all players were known and required to join with a specific server code. In the 5th game of the event, the game was stopped. There were hacker suspects in the game.
Twitch had to remove teams from the match and ban them, then had to continue the tournament.
That’s the problem we face in Warzone: It’s a massively successful game for Activision, and it really has a bright future as a great force in the gaming industry. But why can’t Activision and Blizzard not take the time to implement an appropriate anti-cheat system to ensure competitive integrity? More importantly, why don’t they just do it to improve the overall quality of the game?
Fortnite has plenty of tournaments and events, with over $ 20 million in prizes slated for 2021. They’ve solved much of the cheat problem on their end with an anti-cheat system. Apex Legends’ has a ranked game mode that has an anti-cheat system in place to avoid these issues that Warzone faces.
Popular content creators have been talking about the lack of anti-cheat in Warzone for months.
NICKMERCS commented saying that it will not participate in any Warzone tournaments until a genuine anti-cheat system is implemented to avoid controversial wins.
And recently, Dr Disrespect also commented on the drama calling Activision for lack of proper action to prevent the situation from happening.
Warzone certainly continues to be a very popular free battle royale option for many fans.
The future of Warzone
And Activision also seems invested in its future. Johanna Faries, vice president and head of leagues at Activision Blizzard Esports, recently revealed that the company is planning Warzone to be part of the Call of Duty League.
“There is [plans to bring Warzone to Call of Duty League], and we’re excited to announce these plans in the weeks and months to come. We’ve been watching the introduction and wild popularity of Warzone closely since last spring. We brought in some Warzone related content with our pros last season, but took advantage of the offseason to think more about what a more structured investment might look like. There are some really exciting things to come this season.
It’s good to hear. But if they want a Warzone-based CDL or the integration of the title into an esports program to be successful, Call of Duty: Warzone is in desperate need of an anti-cheat system setup to ensure competitive integrity and none. dispute over the legitimacy of the victories.
We hope Activision has plans – as soon as possible – to achieve this.
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