RICOCHET progress report: Anti-cheat improvements, Modern Warfare 2 & Warzone 2.0 SMS requirements
Here’s everything you need to know about the improvements made to Call of Duty’s RICOCHET anti-cheat ahead of Modern Warfare 2’s launch on October 28.
For the first time, players will benefit from RICOCHET anti-cheat at the launch of a new Call of Duty title. The devs were adamant about bringing RICOCHET to Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2.0 on day one.
When the Call of Duty team introduced players to RICOCHET during Warzone Pacific Season 1, they also declared that the anti-cheat would continue to evolve and improve over the next months and years.
Here’s everything you need to know about RICOCHET’s improvements thanks to a progress report leading up to Modern Warfare 2’s October 28 release date.
- RICOCHET improvements for Modern Warfare 2 & Warzone 2
- RICOCHET anti-cheat Modern Warfare 2 beta recap
- Modern Warfare 2 & Warzone 2 SMS requirements explained
RICOCHET improvements for Modern Warfare 2 & Warzone 2
Players will be able to rely on RICOCHET’s kernel-level driver to mitigate cheaters on day one of Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2.0. On October 28 and November 16 respectively, players will benefit from new features that will better protect them in both Call of Duty experiences.
According to team RICOCHET, this updated version of the anti-cheat “will operate on a new, unified security platform.” Players can expect enhanced detection and new techniques to eliminate cheaters across both Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2.
Improvements made to RICOCHET can be separated into the following three categories:
In-Game Mitigations
Mitigation techniques, otherwise known as the method for nerfing or eliminating cheaters in Call of Duty games, will return for Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2.
Warzone Pacific players will be familiar with some of the techniques they’ve witnessed in the past such as the notorious Damage Shield. RICOCHET’s mitigation techniques like Cloaking and Disarming will continue to render cheaters ineffective in-game.
Server vs Client
Call of Duty games are often created through a collaboration between several studios. Luckily, team RICOCHET will work with Call of Duty’s studio partners to transform “how the game client and server communicates, migrating certain processes to be powered on the server-side in addition to the client.”
This collaboration between the devs and team RICOCHET should allow for more cohesion between the different groups working toward the same goal of mitigating cheaters.
Kernel-Level Driver Updates
RICOCHET’s PC kernel-level driver is set for a major upgrade for the launch of Modern Warfare 2. All in all, team RICOCHET have taken the necessary steps to ensure that RICOCHET continues to evolve.
Not only will the updated driver deliver more data to Call of Duty security teams, but due to the constantly evolving nature of RICOCHET, the anti-cheat should never feel outdated as it continues to detect and mitigate cheaters.
RICOCHET anti-cheat Modern Warfare 2 beta recap
In case you missed it, during the Modern Warfare 2 beta, only a partial anti-cheat system was active. This allowed team RICOCHET to collect valuable data, especially since the Modern Warfare 2 beta broke a participation record.
The RICOCHET progress report released on October 13 confirms that over 20,000 bans were issued over the course of the Modern Warfare 2 beta. Meanwhile, an additional 60,000 accounts were banned prior to the beta, restricting access to it before it even began.
The data reveals that 72% of players were detected and banned before they could do any real harm by entering a match during the Modern Warfare 2 beta. These numbers are encouraging leading up to Modern Warfare 2.
The beta recap also revealed that “players who reported that appeared to cause their accounts to be permanently banned,” were not banned without cause.
Team RICOCHET confirmed that: “The game itself cannot trigger a ban. Additionally, our security and data engineers have confirmed that there was not a bug possible which would have allowed this to happen during the beta.”
Modern Warfare 2 & Warzone 2 SMS requirements explained
Following the launch of Overwatch 2, Call of Duty players were concerned that the controversial SMS requirements found in the hero shooter would make their way to Modern Warfare 2.
Luckily, Activision confirmed that Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2’s SMS requirements are not the same as Overwatch 2. It turns out, only PC players will need to provide a phone number attached to their account in order to play.
“The SMS policy for Modern Warfare II and Warzone 2.0 on Battle.net is the same as the requirement for Call of Duty: Warzone on PC, which was implemented in May 2020. A mobile phone number must be linked to your Steam Account to play Modern Warfare II on that platform.”
In other words, if you’ve been playing Warzone on PC since May 2020, no extra steps are required and it will be business as usual once Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2.0 launch.
For more, check out how to get Modern Warfare 2 Campaign rewards or discover every MW2 pre-order bonus available to players.
Image Credit: Activision
