With the release of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 approaching, Activision Blizzard has shared plans to crack down on cheaters with changes to the Ricochet anti-cheat engine.
Hot off the heels of the false ban controversy in Call of Duty, which saw legitimate players getting unfair perma bans on their accounts, Activision published a blog post on the matter. While the developer didn’t directly address the false bans, it did touch on the subject, chalking up the error to new upgrades coming in “a little hot.” However, Blizzard has pledged to crack down on bad actors with upgraded tech.
In a new blog post, the developer shared plans for Ricochet anti-cheat that will go live with Black Ops 6 on October 25. These upgrades will be applied across all Call of Duty titles that use the engine.

All the updates announced for Black Ops 6 anti-cheat
Activision says that Ricochet’s kernel-level cheat detection will be improved to identify hackers more quickly.
Ricochet is the anti-cheat used in all major Call of Duty titles, but it’s not known for being the best anti-cheat, at least according to the game’s loyal fanbase. Like any multiplayer game, Call of Duty: Warzone, Modern Warfare 3, and even the Black Ops 6 playtest have faced their share of cheaters.
However, the recent wave of false bans against legitimate players raised significant concerns. Many players found themselves wrongly penalized, leading to frustration and calls for improvements in the anti-cheat system to ensure fair play for everyone. When Blizzard acknowledged and reversed the false bans, it promised a “progress report,” which went live on October 18, outlining plans for Ricochet.
According to the statement, Ricochet will have an updated version of the kernel-level driver, notifying the system of cheaters when the game is running. These notifications will be faster than ever before, thanks to a new machine-learning behavioral system focused on speed of detection.
The biggest changes, per Activision, include “new machine-learning behavioral systems, focused on speed of detection” and “detection models to analyze gameplay to combat aim bots.”
Activision has been testing the “speed,” which has progressively improved from identifying cheaters after ten matches to detecting them after just five. After the latest upgrades, the developer is confident that it may be able to pluck the bad actors out within an hour of a multiplayer online game. In theory, this will allow Ricochet to more reliably identify hackers and take action faster.
If that’s true, players may still come across cheaters initially, but they’ll get closure during the game by watching their cheater get banned live. It will be interesting to see how impactful the upgraded Ricochet anti-cheat is in practice, but on paper, it sounds promising.