Warzone’s latest anti-cheat strategy gives non-cheaters “Damage Shield” when servers detect cheating

Call of Duty: Warzone has suffered from a cheating problem for years. Its initial announcement of the Richocet anti-cheat technology in October was supposed to be the answer to these issues. Months on from release, however, it doesn’t seem to have worked that well. As new methods continue to be tested, a recent implementation of what is referred to as a Damage Shield may help.

According to this month’s Call of Duty Ricochet anti-cheat update, the team has been messing around with actions beyond just banning accounts. This comes in the form of the aforementioned Damage Shield, which detects whether a player is manipulating the game in real-time. If the server determines someone is cheating, it disables that player’s ability to inflict damage upon others.

All legitimate players are protected from harm, opening the cheater up to being killed for playing unfairly. The post makes it clear that the team is always tracking encounters to make sure the shield isn’t applied where it doesn’t belong. This Damage Shield mitigation method is currently out of testing, having been deployed around the world to all Warzone players.

Considering it has only recently left the testing phase, it remains to be seen how effective the post’s claims are. As always, the possibility remains that hackers could find a way around this method after a few weeks. After all, Warzone has seen an increase in cheating even after Ricochet’s deployment. It’s not as prominent as it used to be, but players are still finding ways around the current anti-cheat technology.