Seeing Black Ops 7 ‘cheating’ videos going viral on Social Media? They’re likely already banned.

In case you missed it, the Call of Duty Black Ops 7 beta is live, and several members of the XboxEra team have been checking it out and having a pretty good time! If you were to look online and around social media however, you might think cheaters are plaguing the game, before it’s even officially out as a full package. So what’s going on?

Ahead of the Call of Duty Black Ops 7 beta going live, Activision shared some updates and details on Ricochet, their anti-cheating solution. New requirements were detailed – TPM 2.0 and Secure boot were required on PC, and Ricochet would be deployed and actively monitored during the beta – per the team at Activision, “The Black Ops 7 Beta will be a critical test for the systems we have online under real player conditions. We are actively monitoring matches, gathering data across thousands of unique hardware setups, and removing cheaters in real time.“

I’ve checked in with some folks internal on the developer/PR side has to what’s happening here, and the truth is – this is social media doing what it does best – sharing information that’s already been seen and acted upon.

Here’s the scenario. Players encounter a pesky cheater using an aimbot of whatever nefarious method to gain an advantage, and the player on the receiving end makes a video, which gets shared online. In reality, the Ricochet system has already detected them and banned them from the game – but the video stays online, and then is shared over and over again by others.

The team at Activision are seeing the same clips repeatedly shared, which is creating a narrative that doesn’t necessarily reflect reality. As per some of my conversations, the team knew that cheating would be attempted, which they outlined in the blog post. The important detail that is being skipped as the clips are shared online repeatedly is that they are getting caught. Looking at the many updates seen here, the system does seem to be working. In some cases, the player in question is already banned before the video had even made it online.

It’s not that there isn’t cheating – the team at Ricochet knew it would happen, and laid down the gauntlet “During the Beta, the above machine learning systems are some of the tools we’ll be testing in the background to check accuracy and refine performance. These detections, and other systems, will be dynamically scaled – activated, tested, and monitored – throughout the Beta as we prepare to deliver the strongest protections that have ever launched alongside a new Call of Duty title.” So perhaps give the team a chance to act, before declaring everything a disaster?

If you’re keen to keep an eye on up to date information from the Call of Duty team directly – check here.

Have you encountered cheating in Call of Duty Black Ops 7, or are you having a great time? Let us know in the XboxEra Forums or make some noise in our lively community Discord.