Why is Warzone seeing a sudden surge of aimbots and cheaters? Reasons explored

Modified Jul 30, 2024 09:08 GMT

Two Operators in Warzone as players spawn behind them — Discussing the recent surge of cheaters in Warzone (Image via Activision)

Warzone has recently seen a sudden rise in cases of aimbots and cheaters. Fans have been calling it the worst cheating epidemic since the days of Verdansk in the original Warzone (2020). If you have played the shooter in the past week, you are certain to have encountered hackers using cheats in some form. At the moment, the cheating situation is so bad that even the developers had to come out to address the issue.

So what is exactly going on? Why is the game suddenly seeing a rise in cases of cheating? In this article, we'll take a closer look at the reasons for this sudden rise in cheaters in Warzone.

Exploring the reasons for the sudden surge of cheaters in Warzone

The recent surge in the number of cheaters in Warzone can be traced back to the Season 5 update, which launched on July 24. It was also the day when Modern Warfare 3 was added to the Xbox Game Pass, and everything started to crumble from thereon.

Rise in the cases of cheating in Warzone explained (Image via Activision)

When PC users play the game via the Game Pass, the shooter detects them as an Xbox player. Although this might seem like not a big deal at first, it's one of the major reasons for the recent surge of cheaters in the battle royale.

Unlike players on PCs, console users aren't subject to strict anti-cheat measures. Ricochet is still active and can ban players on consoles, but since it doesn't have kernel-level access, it can't make as many checks on the consoles as it can on a PC. But that is not a problem as cheating on a console is nearly impossible in the first place.

Also read: Modern Warfare 3 coming to Xbox Game Pass may have backfired for console players

However, things took a turn for the worse when MW3 joined the Xbox Game Pass. Since the PC players on Game Pass are detected as console users in the game, it essentially allows them to bypass the strict checks imposed on a PC user who might be playing the game via Battle.net or Steam.

This makes them immune to an extent, and they can cheat freely in the game, with little to no repercussions. Furthermore, since these players appear in the game as Xbox users, other players tend to avoid going to the extent of reporting them, as it is a well-known fact that cheating on consoles is almost impossible.

So in a nutshell, the game's failure to recognize PC users on Game Pass as a PC player can be attributed as one of the major reasons for the recent rise of cheaters in Warzone.

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Edited by Srijan Sen