Overwolf respond to Warzone & Cold War Windows 11 player bans

Liam Mackay
Mason fighting zombies in black ops cold war

Call of Duty PC players have reported that using a combination of Windows 11 and Overwolf software is getting them permanently banned from Warzone and Cold War, and Overwolf have now responded to the issue.

Call of Duty devs have been waging an ongoing war with hackers and cheaters, with one dev saying that they are “ruining some of the best work” of his life. Over 800,000 accounts have now been banned, but perhaps not all bans are fair.

Cold War and Warzone PC players are claiming that upgrading to Windows 11 and using it alongside Overwolf is causing them to be permanently banned. Overwolf have now acknowledged the issue and put measures in place to prevent these wrongful bans.

GRAV in Call of Duty Warzone Season 6

Overwolf is a platform used to create and install in-game apps, such as ‘Outplayed’ which allows players to record their footage. However, this Overwolf app is reportedly causing permabans when used alongside Windows 11.

Several users, including Reddit user WraithGG, claimed they were permanently banned from Warzone after attempting to open Cold War on an Insider Build of Windows 11, with Outplayed from Overwolf open. WraithGG said that this is a “well known and apparently rather common issue,” and both Activision and Overwolf are “refusing” to lift the ban or help.

“I have finally received a response from Activision telling me that despite being innocent, they cannot unban my account,” said WraithGG. “They have acknowledged the error in the ban, but are refusing to lift the ban as all bans are final.”

Overwolf have now responded to the issue. In a blog post, they said that “we are aware of a number of users who have been banned after playing Cold War and Warzone on Windows 11 while using Overwolf.”

“While we are not responsible for the bans, Support Main is one of our core values and we immediately began to look into the issue to protect gameplay and our community,” they continued. “For background, Cold War has been supported on Overwolf for months without any bans or issues.”

They then outlined the steps they’ve made since:

  1. “We have released an update to our games list to change the way the Overwolf overlay works and will no longer trigger a ban from Activision while using Windows 11. It’s important to note that in the 24 hours following this change, we have not had any new ban reports.
  2. We’re working closely with the very top levels at Activision, and we’ll do whatever we can to help those whose accounts have been banned. We can’t promise it will work, but we’ll give it our best shot.”

Overwolf said they will keep the community updated if they have any more information to share.

Now that the issue has been officially acknowledged, Activision may change their stance and unban players flagged for using Windows 11. This could be a similar story to Cold War Zombies players who were unfairly banned by the Sail 630 Nuclear Bug, and later had their accounts restored.

These reports have made some users worried about Vanguard’s upcoming kernel-level RICOCHET anti-cheat, which launches with its Warzone integration.

Image Credit: Activision

About The Author

Liam is CharlieIntel's Editor who focuses on Call of Duty but also plays lots of fantasy RPGs or anything else in his massive gaming backlog. After graduating in Journalism from Edinburgh Napier University, Liam freelanced in games journalism before joining CharlieIntel in November 2020. You can contact Liam at [email protected].