'You have 3 studios that don’t want to work together' — Ex-Activision employee explains why Call of Duty has more cheaters than other games

By Animesh Talukdar

Modified Dec 28, 2024 18:51 GMT

Exploring the main reason behind Call of Duty's severe cheating issue (Image via Activision)

Call of Duty Black Ops 6 and Warzone have recently been facing a major issue involving lobbies being overrun by hackers and cheaters. Former Activision employee Justin Taylor (@TheSmarmyBum) has highlighted its root cause on his official X account, stating:

''You have three studios (Sledgehammer, Infinity Ward, Treyarch) that don’t want to work together and essentially start from scratch on the game each year.''

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This article will explore his statement in detail and provide further insights into the cheating issue in Black Ops 6 and Warzone.

Exploring why Call of Duty has more cheaters than other games

Ranked Play in Black Ops 6 and Warzone has been overrun by hackers, forcing some prominent players to leave the game. Many are questioning why the hacking problem is so severe and why Ricochet, the anti-cheat system, has failed to counter it effectively.

Former Activision employee, Justin Taylor, highlighted that a key issue here is the yearly release cycle of Call of Duty. He claimed that each of the three developers — Sledgehammer, Infinity Ward, and Treyarch — has to develop a new CoD title from scratch every year and don't want to work together on a unified framework.

This approach means that by the time one studio addresses a major problem like cheating, the year ends, and a new studio releases the next game in the franchise. To put things in perspective, Taylor compared Call of Duty to games like Apex Legends, Fortnite, and Valorant, where studios focus on a single product, refining it over time to improve the player experience.

"They haven’t been building and making one product like Apex, Fortnite, Valorant, etc and improving on the product over time. So every year you’re buying a new product. And by the time they figure it out, a new studio, with a new Call of Duty launches."

If the three studios lack coordination, as Taylor suggests, hackers can exploit new loopholes faster than the developers can address them. The constant shift to fresh titles leaves little room for perfecting anti-cheat measures, contributing to the ongoing problem.

To address the severe hacking issue, the developers recently banned over 20,000 accounts and announced upcoming improvements to Ricochet. These include an additional layer of protection to mitigate stability issues, an upgraded kernel driver, and a new server-side detection mechanism.

That said, the updates are planned for the Season 2 and Season 3 releases. With nearly a month left for Season 1 to end, the ongoing hacking problem needs immediate attention. Implementing frequent minor patches, similar to the recent ban wave, could help mitigate the issue to some extent until major changes are made.

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Edited by Ritoban "Veloxi" Paul