Activision has banned 58,000 Call of Duty accounts in a single day across Modern Warfare 3 and Warzone as part of its latest crackdown on alleged cheaters.
The publisher said it was directly targeting sellers of cheat software, which enables players to gain an unfair advantage over others in the fiercely competitive shooter.
Using shady third-party programs, rule-breakers can see players behind walls, automatically aim weapons at opponents, and unlock infinite ammo.
"Be wary of bold claims made by cheaters trying to sell subscriptions to their wares,” Activision told gaming website CharlieIntel.
Referring to its anti-cheat division, it said Team Ricochet “has been launching a series of targeted cheat vendor enforcements, resulting in over 58,000 detected accounts banned yesterday [April 9]. More ban waves are expected."
Earlier this week, Activision launched its latest anti-cheat operation, banning 27,000 Call of Duty players and promising more to come.
Over 58,000 accounts were banned yesterday in Call of Duty across Warzone and MW3.
— CharlieIntel (@charlieINTEL) April 10, 2024
Statement from an Activision rep:
"Be wary of bold claims made by cheaters trying to sell subscriptions to their wares. #TeamRICOCHET has been launching a series of targeted cheat vendor… pic.twitter.com/IquEunx7WO
The crackdown is turning out to be the biggest yet and comes just days after the launch of Season 3 of MW3 and Warzone. Activision previously banned 20,000 Warzone cheaters across several days in 2020 — and a further 6,000 in less than a week in February 2024.
Although it isn’t confirming who was ousted this time around, some streamers and regular players claimed on social media that they were the victims of false permanent bans.
I really got banned from call of duty for life for something I didn’t do 😂
— Fleetwood Coupe-DeVille (@moodilena) April 11, 2024
Innocent players allegedly getting caught in the crossfire isn’t a new phenomenon on CoD. Professional players have been banned during similar anti-cheating clampdowns in the past. Online forums and social media are also littered with posts by Call of Duty fans who claim they were wrongly targeted by Activision.
What to do if your Call of Duty account is banned
So, what do you do if you believe your Warzone or Modern Warfare 3 account has been unfairly banned? Firstly, there’s a difference between a temporary suspension and a permanent ban: you can wait out the former but the latter is forever.
If you’ve been hit with the most severe punishment without it being your fault, you can appeal against the ban only via the Activision support website.
I got false Permanent Banned on Call of Duty.
— BAMS (@Bamslol) April 6, 2024
This is just insane pic.twitter.com/yNMgYopJ5S
All you need to do is log in, follow the instructions, and submit a ticket to appeal an account penalty. Activision will contact you with its decision once it completes its investigation.
As the support page states, your punishment will remain no matter who used your account at the time. Activision will only overturn a ban if it determines that “the infraction was due to unauthorized activity on your Activision account”. In other words, if a cheater hacked your account.
Activision says over 27,000 accounts were banned in Call of Duty, across Warzone and MW3, over the weekend.
— CharlieIntel (@charlieINTEL) April 8, 2024
Statement from Team RICOCHET:
"#TeamRICOCHET identified and banned over 27,000 accounts over the weekend through a series of upgraded detection systems. The team is… pic.twitter.com/PPMXbsuEH7
Other players have also suggested contacting Activision directly using its email, which you can find on its privacy policy page here.
If you contact the company, it helps to provide as much evidence as possible to show that you weren’t cheating, whether this is in-game screenshots, video, or chat receipts.
How does Call of Duty catch cheaters?
Activision relies on a mix of anti-cheat software (Ricochet) and player reports to root out cheaters on Call of Duty.
The Ricochet system has two main parts: a computer code that keeps tabs on your PC for signs of tampering while the game is running and server-side monitoring for all platforms, including consoles. The latter observes things like player movement patterns, kill rates, accuracy statistics, and even mouse and controller inputs for signs of cheating. Ricochet’s machine learning models then parse this data to identify and hinder miscreants.
