Activision has banned a crazy number of Black Ops 6 & Warzone players since Ranked Play launch

As with many shooters, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’s Ranked Play has proved very popular with its player base. Now, Activision has revealed it has been forced to ban a lot of cheaters since the mode launched in November 2024.

In any competitive shooter, there are always going to be those who try and skirt around the rules. Whether it’s wallhacks, aimbot or anything in between, it’s usually possible to gain a big advantage over others at the risk of a permanent ban.

As games age and the developer continues to work on them, anti-cheat tools become increasingly effective and it becomes harder to avoid the ban hammer. Happily for those of us who play the game fairly, Black Ops 6 is no exception, with the developer confirming it has banned more than 136,000 Ranked Play accounts since the mode launched.

Additionally, the publisher confirmed the rollout of new cheat-detections systems, with more to come in Seasons 2 & 3.

RICOCHET Anti-Cheat Team gives update on Black Ops 6 Ranked Play

Activision

In a statement on the official Call of Duty website, the anti-cheat team confirmed several changes and updates that are now live in the game:

• Updated detection models for behavioral systems, such as aim botting, and other data points, including account trust and hardware identifiers to target serial cheaters
• Over 136,000 Ranked Play account bans since the mode launched  
• Enhancing cross-examination tools focused on reducing the time it takes to action accounts
• New detection and warning systems for Spam Reporting by accounts
  • Note: Malicious Reporting is against the Security and Enforcement Policy, which you can read online. It’s important to clarify that when a user spams the report button in-game multiple times against a user, or someone uses an illegal cheat tool to spam 10,000 reports, our system does not consider more than one single report from a player versus another (despite what cheat developers are telling players when they try to sell their illegal software).
• New detection and warning systems for repeat Playing with Cheaters behavior
  • Note: When a cheater is banned, our system will detect other accounts it had regularly partied up with and raise flags for investigation to combat boosting and other cheater behavior.

Additionally, they confirmed that more changes are coming after rebutting calls for IP-based bans (which can unnecessarily punish those living in shared accommodations like university campuses). Those updates are as follows:

• Season 02:
  • New and improved client and server-side detections and systems
  • Major kernel-level driver update
    • Improvements to driver security
    • Reinforced encryption process
  • New tampering detection system
    
• Season 03 and beyond:
  • A multitude of new tech including a brand-new system to authenticate legit players and target cheaters
    • Note: As we get closer to S03 we’ll dive a little deeper on these systems; however, it’s important we don’t provide too many details that could give cheat developers a peek behind the curtain

Avoiding detection as a cheater is already clearly pretty tough, with these changes likely to make it even more difficult to go under the radar. Heading into Season 2, the playing field should be more level than ever.