Activision’s Team RICOCHET shares more anti-cheat data from Black Ops 7’s beta and things are looking REALLY good

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Activision’s Team RICOCHET recently shared an update on social media about their continued work to prevent cheating in Call of Duty, particularly as they prepare for the release of Black Ops 7.

According to recently released data, the anti-cheat measures used during the Black Ops 7 beta test earlier this month were some of the most effective ever seen in a Call of Duty game. By the end of the week-long test, almost all matches – 99% – were played without cheaters.

Team RICOCHET says that players who bypassed initial anti-cheat measures were typically identified and banned within three games.

The team behind the RICOCHET anti-cheat system has been releasing updates more often as the release of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 approaches.

As an analyst covering the Call of Duty franchise, I can tell you that Black Ops 6 had a very strong start with its beta and initial launch. However, things took a turn after the first seasonal update integrated with Warzone. We experienced a significant data outage that unfortunately disabled the game’s anti-cheat system. From my observations, Black Ops 6 has struggled to regain stability since then, and we’ve seen a lot of player complaints online about a noticeable increase in cheaters impacting the gameplay experience.

Activision responded to cheating by taking legal action, sending warnings to many cheat developers. Some developers agreed to stop distributing their software, but others simply changed their company names and kept operating as before.

The Team RICOCHET anti-cheat system is now proactively preventing cheaters from entering game lobbies on PC. It does this by requiring players to have Secure Boot and TPM 2.0 enabled – a growing trend in the gaming industry. Battlefield 6 also uses these requirements to detect and block cheaters early on.

The new RICOCHET updates launched with Black Ops 6’s Season 5, but there were some initial problems. Specifically, gamers using motherboards from companies like ASUS and MSI needed updated BIOS software before they could even start the Black Ops 7 beta.

At the start of the Black Ops 7 beta, videos showing players cheating began appearing online. The official Call of Duty team responded quickly, announcing that anyone confirmed to be cheating in those videos had been permanently banned – either during or immediately after the game they were cheating in.

During the Black Ops 7 beta, player reports were key to finding cheaters. In one of my games, a player quickly defeated our whole team right at the start. We reported this disruptive player, and they were removed from the game within a minute.

Activision and the Call of Duty team say they’ll keep improving the RICOCHET anti-cheat system as it’s fully implemented in Black Ops 7 and Call of Duty: Warzone.

To combat cheating, RICOCHET will use improved technology to detect aimbots and wall hacks. It employs new machine learning systems, trained on millions of hours of Black Ops 6 gameplay, to distinguish between legitimate player aiming and the precision of cheating software.

When Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 releases, the Team RICOCHET anti-cheat system will use several layers of detection working together. They’re also constantly improving the AI with updates focused on fixing weaknesses, making it more difficult for cheaters to remain active in the game.

Activision has been using artificial intelligence to monitor in-game chat in Call of Duty for a while. They first teamed up with Modulate to moderate text and voice communication in 2023’s Modern Warfare 3, and continued this partnership with Black Ops 6. However, it’s currently unclear whether they’ll continue using Modulate’s AI moderation tools in the next installment, Black Ops 7.

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2025-10-14 15:11