MORE than half a million Call of Duty players have now been banned.
It comes after a further 30,000 gamers were permanently blocked from Warzone for “cheating” in various ways.
In a statement, game-maker Raven Software said: “Banned over 30,000 malicious accounts across Call of Duty yesterday.
“Bringing us to over half a million accounts banned in Warzone.”
It’s part of a growing crackdown on Warzone cheaters, who cause chaos for legitimate gamers.
Cheaters employ a host of techniques to win games.
These include aimbots, wall hacks, trainers, stat hacks, texture hacks, leaderboard hacks, injectors, hex editors and software that manipulates game data or memory.
The situation is so bad at times that one pro gamer recently quit Call of Duty Warzone.
“We have zero tolerance for cheaters across Call of Duty and Call of Duty Warzone,” said Activision in a statement.
“Our focus is to combat both cheaters and cheat providers.
“We are also continuing our efforts to identify and address cheat providers at the source, who distribute unauthorised third-party software for modding or hacking.
“We are committed to delivering a fair and fun experience for all players.”
Activision says it has security teams monitoring Call of Duty 24/7 to investigate cheating.
Call of Duty cheating – what will get you banned?
Here’s what you need to know…
- There are plenty of ways to cheat on Call of Duty
- Perhaps the most common hack is an aimbot – a piece of software that aims and targets enemies automatically for you
- Activision also explicitly forbids the use of wallhacks, which modifies the properties of walls
- For instance, wallhacking software could allow you to see enemies through walls
- Typically using glitches to escape outside the normal bounds of the map is also considered to be cheating
- Generally it’s a case of using common sense: don’t do anything that gives you an advantage that wouldn’t have been intended by developers
- Also, cheating on a sophisticated game like Call of Duty can be difficult – so if you’re cheating, it’s unlikely to have been an accident
And the company has promised to improve the interface for reporting cheaters in-game.
The game maker says all in-game reports are analysed and investigated.
If a player is found to be cheating – including using “hacks” – then bans will be handed out quickly.
According to Activision, the addition of two-factor authentication has invalidated “over 180,000 suspect accounts”.
And a host of unauthorised third-party software providers have been “eliminated”.
Activision also says it will be providing a regular count on the latest number of players banned.
It’s not the first that Activision has doled out mass bans.
Back in April 2020, a whopping 50,000 Warzone players were booted off the game.
Earlier this year, a further 60,000 players were banned.
This was followed by 30,000 players being banned.
Then in April 2021, a further 45,000 players were banned.
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Read our complete guide to Call of Duty 2021.
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This post first appeared on Thesun.co.uk