Activision bans over 60,000 Warzone accounts in response to rampant cheating, community backlash

Following the events of a Call of Duty tournament gone wrong and a streamer announcing an abrupt end to his Warzone career, Activision has revealed a newly-implemented ban of over 60,000 Call of Duty accounts. The move comes after weeks of community outcry that both Warzone and Black Ops Cold War lobbies were being taken over by players using new cheat software and mods.

“There’s no place for cheating,” Raven Software said in a public letter to fans. “We’re committed to this cause. We are listening and will not stop in our efforts.” It went on to establish that cheat “detection technology” is currently in development, in hopes of more “timely” bans. The declaration comes after its ongoing battle with hackers since Warzone’s March 2020 launch, now resulting in over 300,000 accounts banned.

As reported by Vice, Raven’s ban has targeted users taking advantage of hacks created by modding company EngineOwning. Only moments after this reveal, a post on EngineOwning’s site updated its users that it is developing yet another compatible mod for the affected Call of Duty title.

Hours prior to this ban, popular Warzone streamer Vikkstar published a YouTube video announcing his retirement from the game due to this wave of users “blatantly hacking.” At the time of this writing, the video has garnered over 1.2 million views.

Although Twitch streamers have grown a reputation for accurately pointing out hackers, this rise of in-game modding has also backfired on the community. In late January, an officiated $250,000 Warzone tournament was halted after a number of Twitch streamers insisted professional player Metzy was using the now-blocked cheat software. Although there ultimately wasn’t enough evidence to back the claims, it was still clear Activision needed to calm players’ fears with stricter guidelines and bans. 

With this finally underway, Raven has stated it now has the ability to identity when a player is using unauthorized applications to “manipulate game data or memory,” which is said to include aimbot, wallhacks, and hex editors.