The latest patch for Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 has implemented anti-cheating measures to crack down on boosting and VPN abuse. Cheating is nothing new for Call of Duty and other online games and is especially prevalent in online shooters. Activision is partnering with Team Ricochet to reduce incidents of cheating by taking preventative measures.

Ricochet and Treyarch will be working together to make it more difficult for players to take advantage of boosting through experience grinding. A breakdown of the new anti-cheating features was posted on the Call of Duty website and spotted by Eurogamer. The measures are meant to "combat disruptive behavior" by limiting players to their own regions, detecting AFK players, and swapping out a level limit for a match-win minimum.

How Black Ops 6's New Ricochet Feature Aims To Tackle Cheaters

Black Ops 6 Swaps Experience Requirement For Match Win Requirement

Cheating has been around for nearly as long as video games have existed, all the way back to the 1996 cheating peripheral, the GameShark. Online multiplayer games and shooters are particularly susceptible to cheaters, who often make the game less enjoyable for others. An entire industry has risen around experience-boosting services that help players build up multiple s to the level of Ranked Play.

The new anti-cheating measures aim to make it more difficult to exploit experience grinding. One way that the new approach accomplishes this is by adjusting ping thresholds to make it imperative for players to only play local matches, as cheaters have been using VPNs to artificially game matchmaking for their benefit. The game now also requires players to "win 50 match-made multiplayer matches" in order to unlock Ranked Play, to ensure that players who make it into Ranked are experienced enough to belong there.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Is Watching You Play

Ricochet Will Flag Players Behaving "Unnaturally"

The final measure added to combat cheating in Black Ops 6 is improved the Replay Investigation Tool. Ricochet will use the 50 matches prior to entering Ranked mode as a baseline for players and "a historical match history to examine before an enters Ranked Play." s whose behavior changes between their first winnings and their Ranked Play matches will be flagged for investigation.

In other words, Black Ops 6 will now watch players and flag any who seem to be behaving out of the ordinary. This measure, combined with the rest of the anti-cheating features, will hopefully make it a lot easier for the game to find and stop cheaters before they can make it into Ranked Play matches and ruin the experience for others. The anti-cheating system will launch on Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 first, and will come to Call of Duty: Warzone once Ranked Play launches there, as well.

Source: Call of Duty, Eurogamer