65,000 Cheaters Banned in a Week as Call of Duty’s Anti-Cheat Ricochet Attempts to Clean Up the Xbox Game Pass Mess

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 finally got its long-awaited release on Xbox Game Pass. But the release was overshadowed by a large wave of cheaters, some of whom appeared to be on console but were actually on PC. This has prompted Activision to take swift action.

Activision’s anti-cheat team, Ricochet, recently banned over 65,000 accounts in just one week. This wave of bans targeted players in both Warzone and Modern Warfare 3. With cross-platform play complicating things, the challenge is bigger than ever.

Call of Duty’s Anti-Cheat Team Finally Cracks Down on Modern Warfare 3 Cheaters

Activision‘s Ricochet Anti-Cheat team confirmed the ban wave, stating that the accounts in question were involved in cheating and boosting activities. The announcement had a variety of responses from players.

Some commenters praised the action while others criticized its effectiveness, suggesting that cheaters could easily create new accounts and continue their exploits.

🛡️ #MW3 #Warzone #TeamRICOCHET

The RICOCHET Anti-Cheat team has now purged the Ranked Play leaderboards in both Call of Duty: Warzone and #MWIII, banning accounts for cheating and boosting.#TeamRICOCHET has accelerated cheat vendor enforcements resulting in over 65,000 account…

— Call of Duty Updates (@CODUpdates) August 2, 2024

Players were very vocal about the influx of cheaters recently and the plea for these bans was loud. The addition of Modern Warfare 3 to Xbox Game Pass has only added to the issue. Banned players can easily create new accounts through the service to circumvent the bans.

The cross-platform nature of the game is also another problem. With PC players appearing as Xbox users in multiplayer lobbies, it’s hard to accurately identify and target cheaters. Activision has acknowledged this issue and is working on making the system more accurate.

The Cheater Problem Isn’t Exclusive to Modern Warfare 3 Though

Adding Modern Warfare 3 to Xbox Game Pass was supposed to bring the game over to more fans. And it was also the highlight of Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard as fans awaited the new games in the Game Pass. But instead, the unexpected consequence has made it not so fun for a lot of people.

So with MW3 now on PC Game Pass, PC players are appearing as playing on Xbox because the Microsoft Store version is shown with the "Xbox" logo in lobbies.

So some PC cheaters may appear to be on Xbox, but they are on PC. 😑 pic.twitter.com/YQM1Kp6zwY

— CharlieIntel (@charlieINTEL) July 26, 2024

As the franchise prepares for the release of Black Ops 6, the lessons learned from the current cheating crisis will be crucial. Since the game will be launching on Xbox Game Pass, it’s likely that the same problems come back then.

Learning from the current situation with Modern Warfare 3, Activision must ensure that the new title is equipped to handle potential cheating problems from day one.

This situation isn’t isolated to just these games though. All competitive online games face the problem of cheaters to an extent. And every dev has its own approach to the ever-present battle against the people who ruin games for whatever reason.

Have you been facing cheaters in your Modern Warfare 3 games? Let us know in the comments!