Warzone and MW3 ban wave hits over 65K cheaters after big anti-cheat update

Connor Bennett
Call of Duty MW3 and Warzone players in Ranked Play.

The Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 and Warzone devs have, finally, given players a slice of what they’ve been asking for after rolling out yet another update around the RICOCHET anti-cheat.

CoD’s problems with cheaters have been well-documented over the last few years. Initially, when they started taking over Verdansk and multiplayer lobbies, many players stepped away from the game until the developers rolled out an anti-cheat.

That anti-cheat, which we know today as RICOCHET, has had its ups and downs still being implemented. Regular ban waves have gone out at times, but there have still been plenty of complaints from players about cheaters running wild. 

Things have gotten worse on that front following the Season 5 update for MW3, prompting some players to claim that the anti-cheat is no longer working because of how PC players can avoid detection through Xbox Game Pass. 

The devs had, already, rolled out a fix on that front, but now they’ve dropped another – purging the leaderboards of any cheaters. 

“The RICOCHET Anti-Cheat team has deployed new detections targeting Ranked Play cheaters and boosters in Call of Duty: Warzone. #TeamRICOCHET has banned accounts caught in this sweep and leaderboards have been purged,” the devs said on July 31. 

They also noted that similar detections are being rolled out in Modern Warfare 3’s Ranked mode to tackle cheaters there too. 

“Excellent! We would love to see a full list of those Ranked cheaters who got booted,” one fan said. “YES! Keep going, there’s more,” another added. 

Three days later on August 3, the CoD devs issued another damning statement revealing further details surrounding the ban wave and purging of Ranked Play leaderboards.

“#TeamRICOCHET has accelerated cheat vendor enforcements resulting in over 65,000 account bans across Ranked Play and non-Ranked modes in #Warzone and #MW3 this week,” the devs stated.

Some players, however, urged the devs to fix the shadowban loops that they keep getting in despite not cheating. “One of the main issues is shadow ban loops. Legit players should not get penalized,” one added. “Amazing news. Now, fix the shadow ban loops!” another commented

The devs are looking to try and root out cheaters on a wider scale, but we’ll just have to wait and see if the other issues are addressed.