In the ever-escalating battle against Call of Duty cheaters, Activision has unleashed a series of tactics to keep them on their toes, from obfuscating their targets to outright disarming them. However, the latest measure marks a significant stride in the developers’ fight against hackers in Modern Warfare II and Warzone 2.0 who exploit banned tools, such as wallhacks, to gain an unfair advantage.
Enter the “hallucination” technique deployed by Activision’s vigilant systems upon detecting or suspecting cheaters. Interestingly, this tactical maneuver is meticulously designed not to affect legitimate players, but rather to disorient and deceive hackers. The brilliance lies in the creation of a clone for each hallucination, based on an actual player within the match, as shared by the Ricochet anti-cheat team. These hallucinations flawlessly mimic human players in their movement, appearance, and interaction with the game world, tricking cheaters into perceiving them as genuine opponents.
Ricochet assures that cheaters will struggle to distinguish between a hallucination and a real player at first glance. The team emphasizes that even in the provided image, featuring one hallucination and one authentic player, it is nearly impossible to discern between the two. Hallucinations emit the same covert information cheaters would typically acquire about legitimate players through their illicit tools. Moreover, Activision strategically positions the hallucinations in close proximity to suspected cheaters. If a shady player engages with a hallucination in any way, it acts as an unequivocal red flag, instantly exposing them as a hacker.
#TeamRICOCHET is thrilled to share with the community several updates to RICOCHET including the Hallucination decoy and In-Game Reporting, live in Call of Duty #Warzone and #MWII
RICOCHET Anti-Cheat Report ? https://t.co/LdE2ouEvTb pic.twitter.com/j8YLY0kBYD
— Call of Duty (@CallofDuty) June 29, 2023
On a different note, Ricochet recently decided to discontinue one of its hacker mitigation tactics called Quicksand. This peculiar method used to impede Call of Duty cheaters by slowing them down or temporarily immobilizing them. It even tampered with their control schemes. While an updated version of Quicksand might resurface in the future, it has been put on hold due to some unintended side effects.
“A fun mitigation to deploy against bad actors, Quicksand could also be visually jarring to anyone in the lobby,” explained a Call of Duty blog post. “Imagine encountering an enemy moving at a snail’s pace in the midst of your rotation out of a hot zone. It could certainly trip you up.”
Meanwhile, Ricochet offered an encouraging update on its efforts to curb the use of XIM-style controller passthrough devices favored by cheaters. “Within the first two weeks of launching this detection, we witnessed a staggering 59 percent decline in the utilization of these devices across Modern Warfare II and Warzone,” stated Team Ricochet. “Furthermore, of those users, 57 percent refrained from using the device again.” The anti-cheat team emphasized that persistent users of such devices face penalties for their actions.
As the cat-and-mouse game between Activision and Call of Duty cheaters continues, these innovative tactics stand as testament to the developer’s unwavering dedication to creating a fair and enjoyable gaming environment for all players. By deploying ingenious strategies like hallucinations and actively combatting the use of cheating devices, Activision strives to maintain the integrity of its games, ensuring that genuine skill and fair competition reign supreme.
