TheCall of Dutyfranchise is one of the most popular franchises in the world and each annual iteration of the series reliably sells millions of copies. Additionally, the recent addition of theCall of Duty: Warzonebattle royale has only further cementedCall of Dutyas a titan within the industry. Yet even titans have their flaws, andCall of Duty’s has been its struggles with widespread cheating in its games. In an effort to improve its efforts against cheating in its games,Call of Dutyis introducing its all-new Ricochet anti-cheat initiative.
Ricochet is a new anti-cheat system thatCall of Duty’s developers are planning to introduce alongside the launch ofCall of Duty: Vanguard, followed by support forCall of Duty: Warzonewith the release of its Pacific map update. It’s a multi-faceted anti-cheat system, meaning that it targets cheaters in multiple different ways. The list of anti-cheat features includes “server-side tools” that monitor analytics for cheating behavior, “enhanced investigation process,” and “account security” updates.
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The heart of the Ricochetanti-cheat initiative is something new toCall of Dutygames, however. It’s called a kernel-level driver and it’ll be a PC-exclusive feature, though it’ll impact console players via cross-play. A kernel-level driver is built into a PC at its foundation, akin to drivers necessary for video cards and other key PC devices. In other words, it grants much deeper access to software running on a PC and enables a significantly more thorough amount of protection.
The kernel-level driver forCall of Dutywill arrive inCall of Duty: Warzonefirst, later this year, and will then come toCall of Duty: Vanguard. The implication is that the different systems for the Ricochet anti-cheat initiative are still in active development and will be rolled out as they’re ready.
Kernel-level drivers understandably cause some PC gamers to worry, given the breadth of access granted through them. For example, Activision theoretically could see everything aCall of Duty: Vanguardplayer does on their PC with an untrustworthy driver. In its announcement, however, theCall of Dutyteam promises the driver will solely operate whileCall of Duty: WarzoneorCall of Duty: Vanguardare on and will only monitor and report “software and applications that interact” with the game.
Call of Dutywill not be the first to offer kernel-level drivers for anti-cheat. Dozens of games use third-party anti-cheat with kernel-level implementation. EasyAntiCheat, PunkBuster, and BattlEye are just a few examples of third-party services that provide kernel-level anti-cheat. Riot Games is perhaps the best comparison, as it implemented its own proprietarykernel-level driver inValorant, much like Activision is doing for itsCall of Dutygames. No anti-cheat is perfect, but theCall of Dutyteam is clearly making an effort to improve.
Call of Duty: Warzoneis available now andCall of Duty: Vanguardlaunches November 5 on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
