Activision Planned Ahead of the Call of Duty: Warzone Ricochet Anti-Cheat Leak

Not too long ago, Activision teased a new Anti-Cheat solution that’s going to be implemented in both Call of Duty: Warzone and its successor, Vanguard. Both games have been suffering a hacker problem which Activision is currently campaigning against. This new solution called Ricochet plans to take the fight to the next level by bringing a robust anti-cheat system supported by a team of dedicated professionals focused on fighting unfair play.

However, not too long after its announcement, the news about Ricochet’s kernel-level driver being leaked came up. Not only that but it was said that a team of cheaters was already working on reverse-engineering the kernel-level Anti-Cheat solution.

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As the last update to that story, Activision stated publicly through the Call of Duty Twitter that Ricochet is in a controlled Live-testing phase before players would have to put it on their PCs. Said testing includes providing a pre-released version of the driver to 3rd parties. At the time, it was speculated that the ‘third parties’ in question were, in reality, the cheaters themselves.

Update from #TeamRicochet:

▶️ RICOCHET Anti-Cheat™ is in controlled live testing. Before putting it on your PC, we’re testing the hell out of it
▶️ Testing includes providing a pre-release version of the driver to select 3rd parties
▶️ Readying server-side upgrades for launch

— Call of Duty (@CallofDuty) October 15, 2021

Fast-forward to today, during an interview with Vice, two anonymous sources familiar with Activision’s plans revealed that the company expected the leak to happen. Prior to the announcement of the anti-cheat system, they rolled out the aforementioned pre-released version and expected cheaters to leak it. This was done in order to have more advanced cheat creators bypass the first version of Ricochet so a far more robust version is created afterward.

“That will help the people that would, in any case, be able to bypass that first version. The less advanced cheaters are screwed either way as they don’t have the skills to come fight in the kernel,” one of the sources said. 

In other words, Activision knew that a leak of the Ricochet system was bound to happen sooner than later and is now declaring that they essentially made a honeypot for cheaters. Only time will tell whether or not this will positively affect the kernel-based driver for the upcoming release of Call of Duty: Vanguard.