A Warzone player recently asked why they were being victimized—yet in reality, the RICOCHET anti-cheat was just doing its job and the cheater had no idea.
Cheating runs rampant in CoD, and the devs have gotten creative in how they deal with mitigating the issue. In June 2023, for example, a RICOCHET ant-cheat system update added a hallucination effect that placed decoy characters within the game that could only be detected by cheaters.
RICOCHET added some more tricks up its sleeve ahead of Modern Warfare 3. Sledgehammer Games took a new bold approach to combat hacking by applying AI “machine learning” to detect when a possible cheater is in the game.
All signs point toward the new innovations paying dividends as the devs reported on Dec. 22, 2023, that over 23,000 accounts have been banned since MW3 launched—and that’s also thanks in part to another new unorthodox mitigation method.
Warzone player gets crash course in “splat” feature
Alongside AI learning, MW3 added “splat,” which disables a player’s parachute and sends them falling to their death if they are suspected of cheating. If the system doesn’t detect any wrongdoing until after deploying, the devs explained that splat transforms the simplest bunny hop into a 10,000-foot death drop that takes them out instantly.
We got a first-hand look at splat in action when a player posted a clip without knowing what hit them.
The original poster asked “why are they victimizing me,” as the player didn’t receive an option to use a parachute and plummeted to their death from the starting plane. After getting revived, the suspected cheater attempted to jump and fell to their death again.
In August 2023, Warzone community members flamed the RICOCHET anti-cheat for not correctly doing its job, so seeing splat in action is a refreshing reminder that the devs have made progress in their ongoing fight against cheating.
