Home Entertainment Will Warzone Ever Get a Handle on Their Hacking Problem?

Will Warzone Ever Get a Handle on Their Hacking Problem?

Will Warzone Ever Get a Handle on Their Hacking Problem?
Photo by Fábio Silva on Unsplash

Released in March 2020, Call Of Duty: Warzone is a free-to-play Battle Royale video game published by Activision. It’s the publisher’s response to games like Fortnite, PUBG, or EA’s Apex Legends, leaders in the Battle Royale genre, and an attempt to renew interest in the 20+ year franchise.

Since its release, Warzone acquired a reputation for being plagued by cheaters and hacking. It caused many players to drop the game and move on to other Battle Royale games. The developers issued many patches over the year-long existence of the game. However, cheating and hacking are still present in the Warzone game, and to this day, no real anti-cheat solution is available.

Gamers Hate Cheats and Hackers

Raven Software is working on a solution and has banned “over 50,000 accounts in Warzone”. Meanwhile, hacking and cheating are still rampant on PC Warzone, and the player count is decreasing. Fortunately, some games can’t be cheated; safe and trustworthy live casinos online exist for players who want a safe, secure, and free from a cheating environment. As Raven Software and Activision try to damage-control the situation, some cheaters enjoy trolling the devs on Twitter.

As 2021 reaches its ending and Activision announced a new Call of Duty game, developed by Sledgehammer, Raven seems to have planned a solution that will be active at the release of this new game.

What can Raven Software do about the situation? Can players prevent themselves from cheating?

Raven Software Anti-Cheating Solutions

To resolve the situation, Activision and Raven Software have several options, some more cost-effective than others.

What the Competition Did

One possibility would be to do it as Epic did with Fortnite and how many games tried to solve cheating with varying degrees of success by hiring a third party specialized in anti-cheat software. Many games do it this way. However, it costs a lot of money, and it has been known not to be 100% efficient, causing game crashes and some games still having cheaters after implementing the anti-cheat.

In 2011, Halo Anniversary was released, and its solution to cheating was original. Upon buying the game, it offered two programs for multiplayer. One was not monitored and allowed modding and cheating. The other one was built to limit the background tasks your computer can perform while the game is running. However, this solution is unique, and it needs to be thought out before the release to have a stable enough game. Also, the fact it was never replicated proves this is a complex way of doing things.

Creating Their Own Anti-Cheat System

This is the solution Activision went with Sledgehammer, developer of CoD: WWII and the upcoming Vanguard. In their announcement of the opus, scheduled to release on November 5th, 2021, they claim Vanguard will be integrated into Warzone with a whole new map, and that’s when their anti-cheat will come into play. This new system is possible because Vanguard will work on the same engine as 2019’s Modern Warfare, which also powers Warzone.

It’s the most cost-effective solution for Activision and spares them the issue of having to share code with a third party.

gaming keyboard
Photo by Mateo Vrbs on Unsplash

Players Find Ways to Protect Themselves

If you’re still on Warzone and don’t want to wait to play the game fairly. Here are a few tips. These will not 100% prevent cheating, but you will encounter fewer of them.

On Consoles

If you’re playing the game on Playstation 5, one of the best things you can do is go to your settings and deactivate Cross-platform play. This feature connects players from PS5, PC, and Xbox together. The idea of this feature is to help players always be able to find matches. However, this presents a big problem, as PC players are advantaged with movement and aiming. Even if console players have aim assist, a joystick can’t compare to a mouse. Of course, the main issue is that PC players can cheat, so playing without cross-platform on PS5 will guarantee you play without cheaters. Unfortunately, as we speak, Xbox players cannot modify this feature, so they’re stuck with cheaters.

On PC

Although it’s not a foolproof solution against cheaters, many PC gamers only play on a map called Rebirth. This map is smaller in scale, and fewer cheaters are on it, as they tend to play on the classic map for Battle Royale. So, if you still play it on PC, this might be a temporary way to play until the release of the Anti-cheat system in November.

Conclusion

Right now, Call of Duty Warzone is still riddled with cheaters and hacking problems using Aimbots, Wallhacks, and other systems to ruin the experience, but Raven Software and Beenox have been working on their Anti-cheat system. So until then, players will just have to be patient and hope this patch delivers and finally allows everybody to play a fair game.

Featured Photo by Fábio Silva on Unsplash