BO6 & Warzone devs reveal Season 2 anti-cheat, Ranked Play & server stability changes

The Black Ops 6 and Warzone dev teams finally revealed a plan to address the most pressing issues in Season 2.

In December, Activision promised massive anti-cheat improvements at the start of 2025. However, after the January 3 and 9 updates both did not make any of those proposed changes, players started to fear about how long they would have to wait.

Thankfully, that wait is almost over, as the development team revealed a comprehensive strategy to crack down on cheating, improve server performance, and fix the staggering amount of bugs in Warzone.

Cheating, server issues, and Ranked Play changes coming in Season 2

Activision

Here is a preview of what’s coming in Season 2 on January 28.

RICOCHET Anti-Cheat

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
• New detection and warning systems for repeat Playing with Cheaters behavior
• 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

Server stability, packet loss, and lobby crashing

“We have been monitoring match activity closely, including identifying suspicious accounts that appear in multiple “crashed” lobbies. The team at Demonware has narrowed down some specific causes of these issues that can affect all players, and new improvements have been made to Call of Duty’s server infrastructure this week to reduce targeted cases of malicious activities on our infrastructure and players. While this is an industry-wide issue, we remain committed to combatting individuals and organizations who intend to ruin the gameplay experience for others.”

Other Season 2 changes

Global

• Challenge Tracker (up to 10 manually tracked Challenges or 10 nearest completion)

• Separate HUD Preset settings for MP and Zombies

• Reduced collision with teammates to improve maneuverability around tight spaces and doorways with nearby teammates

Multiplayer

Gameplay & quality of life updates

• Weapon balance pass

• Bullet penetration updates

• Further reducing weapon motion when jumping, sliding, and diving with the Dexterity Perk equipped

• Improving player visibility in Kill Confirmed by reducing the height of dog tags

• Simplifying/expanding requirements for several Prestige Calling Card Challenges

• Later in Season 02, we’re planning on adding an icon over an opponent’s head when you shoot them if they have War Cry active, so you know they’ve got faster health regen. This should clear up confusion in firefights where you didn’t know why an enemy with more health was able to survive an engagement.

Playlist changes

• Expanding the number of Featured Playlist slots

• Bringing Gunfight back to Featured Playlists

• Keeping Stakeout 24/7 in Featured Playlists and/or Quick Play

• Planning a “Small Maps Moshpit” shortly after season launch for camo grinders

High-profile bug fixes

• Gearhead will now properly increase the charge rate of Field Upgrades

• Free for All will accurately calculate the scoreboard by kills and the Winner’s Circle will accurately showcase the Top 3 FFA players

• Ninja will no longer be able to reset between respawns or round transitions in certain game modes

• Fixes and tuning updates for a large number of Calling Card Challenges

Ranked Play

• We’ve heard the feedback from players about wanting the choice to toggle cross-play in Ranked Play since its launch earlier this season, and in the spirit of improving the gameplay experience, we’re returning to the way we’ve traditionally handled cross-play. In Season 02, we are enabling the ability to disable cross-play for console players who want to compete only against other console players. ↳ This is currently in testing and is planned to go live for both Black Ops 6 Ranked Play and Warzone Ranked Play during S02. We’ll be monitoring closely and will consider further changes to prioritize the integrity of the ecosystem, and we’ll have more details to share as we get closer to the launch of this feature.

• The Vote to Forfeit feature is coming at Season 02 launch, which allows players to vote with their team to end a match early if the team is getting blown out, or you’ve lost a teammate. Forfeited matches count as a standard loss and do not result in SR penalties or suspensions.

• The ability to rejoin Ranked Play matches is also planned for later in Season 02, which should help to ensure fuller teams in matches if players experience a disconnect.

Warzone

Weapons

• Reload speeds are faster for all weapons, anywhere from 5% to 20% depending on weapon class.

• Reduced penalty when sprint-to-fire jumping from 35% to 10% and increased jump ADS speeds by 25% – the intent is to find that middle ground of being able to pull off jump shots, without it being the meta movement strategy.

• Adjusted bullet penetration across most materials resulting in a more consistent experience for thicker walls in particular.

• Weapon swap speed increased by 10%, effectively replicating the effect of the Quick Grip Gloves Perk from Modern Warfare.

• Removed burst and semi-auto rifles and low rarity pistols from ground loot – allowing for more confidence in knowing how your weapon will fire when you pick it up.

Movement

• Increased both jump speed and successive jump height with one unmodified successive jump.

• Increased the speed of the parachute cut animation, making cutting a parachute and readying your weapon significantly faster.

• Increased player velocity when landing from a cut parachute land, for smoother transition into full sprint.

Audio

• Reducing reverb effects to improve directionality of movement audio produced by other players (footstep, ascenders, parachutes).

Perks

• Combat Scout pings replaced with an outline that is not visible through walls.

• Added new default Perks: ↳ Dexterity (the weapon component) has been increased in effectiveness and made default for all Warzone Players ↳ As mentioned above, we’ve replicated the effect of Quick Grip Gloves and Fast Reload via weapon adjustments.

• Mountaineer returns as a Perk in slot 1, replacing Dexterity. We’ve increased the fall damage reduction substantially from what is currently in live with Dexterity, though not quite the powerhouse it was during Modern Warfare III.

• Veteran now significantly reduces the damage ticks of Gas Grenades.

Equipment & Killstreaks

• Munitions Satchel now only provides 1 additional item, down from 2, to address overstocking and spamming equipment.

• Maximum deployed tacticals and lethals reduced to 2 each, down from 3, to make more purposeful trap plays.

• Gas Grenade radius, duration, and movement penalties reduced to bring in-line with the vision of a zoning tactical and less of a lethal crutch.

• Spy Camera’s outline effect no longer renders through walls.

• Advanced UAVs will now show elevation arrows.

Miscellaneous

• Body Shield functionality limited: ↳ No longer automatically releases players in free fall. ↳ No longer provides an outline of the victims’ teammates through walls. ↳ Removed manual release of players, keeping them alive – must end with an execution.

• The flares that fire out of Buy Stations when a player is bought back can now be pinged to increase visibility on redeployments.

• Match stat tracker font adjusted for better readability at lower resolutions.