Activision Will Let Call of Duty Black Ops 6 and Warzone Ranked Console Players Disable Crossplay With PC as Cheating Complaints Ramp Up

ign.com:

Activision has addressed Call of Duty community complaints about cheating in Black Ops 6 and Warzone, and confirmed plans to let console Ranked players disable crossplay with PC players.

Cheating has become the hottest topic among hardcore Call of Duty fans following the release of Ranked Play in Black Ops 6 and Warzone with the launch of Season 1 last year. The apparent prevalence of cheaters is considered by some to be ruining competitive multiplayer, and Activision had come under fire for failing to address the problem.

Last month, Activision’s Team Ricochet, the division responsible for its Call of Duty anti-cheat tech, admitted not enough had been done to prevent cheating with the launch of Season 1. “After a series of updates our systems are in a better place today across all modes; however, we did not hit the mark for the integration of Ricochet Anti-Cheat at the launch of Season 01 — particularly for Ranked Play,” Activision said at the time.

Now, in a new blog post, Activision outlined its plan to tackle cheating in Call of Duty in 2025, revealing it had issued over 136,000 Ranked Play account bans since the mode launched. Season 2, which begins soon, includes new and improved client and server-side detections and systems as well as a major kernel-level driver update, Activision said. The company promised “a multitude of new tech” for Season 3 and beyond, including a brand-new system to authenticate legit players and target cheaters. It didn’t want to go into detail on that now, however, so as not to give cheat developers “a peek behind the curtain.”

In the shorter term, with the launch of Season 2, Activision will enable the ability to disable crossplay for console players who want to compete only against other console players in Black Ops 6 and Warzone Ranked Play. It is believed that the majority of cheating in video games is on the PC side, and indeed Call of Duty players on console have for years now disabled crossplay as a matter of course for standard