Call of Duty will get ‘Ricochet’ anti-cheat this year with kernel-level driver

Last year when Riot Games launched Valorant, the game launched with its own kernel-level anti-cheat system called Vanguard. Now, Activision is pulling a similar move with a new anti-cheat system for Call of Duty, known as ‘Ricochet'. 

Activision has been talking up its plans for anti-cheat over the course of this year. With the launch of Call of Duty: Vanguard and the next Warzone refresh, we'll be seeing Ricochet Anti-Cheat included on PC. Much like Valorant's system, Ricochet includes a kernel-level driver that launches with the game for greater security. A kernel-level driver is granted high level access to your system and can monitor and manage software and applications.

This does bring up privacy concerns, but according to Activision, the driver only launches when you load Call of Duty: Vanguard and it only monitors activity related to the game. The driver also closes down when you exit Call of Duty, which should help alleviate some concerns as long as the system truly works this way.

As we've seen with Valorant, these kernel-level drivers do enhance security and heavily reduce the possibility of running into a cheater in-game, but there are workarounds, so it is still not a perfect system. With that in mind, the anti-cheat team will still need to remain vigilant and act quickly when new cheating methods are discovered.

Ricochet will first roll out with the Warzone refresh later this year and will then come to Call of Duty: Vanguard shortly after launch. Ricochet only applies to the PC version of the game, but it should have the bonus effect of reducing the number of cheaters encountered on consoles via cross-play.

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KitGuru Says: We'll see just how successful this new system is once Call of Duty: Warzone relaunches later this year with Vanguard content and in the months that follow. 

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