Hackers can reportedly ban other Warzone players, crash lobbies—but a fix is still a month away

Call of Duty’s battle royale, Warzone, seems to be in tumultuous state of late, as players continue to complain about a myriad of issues, and content creators flock to other games.

Today, Activision squelched any possibility of players turning off crossplay for Ranked Play where hacking remains an issue, including cheats that can apparently shut down entire lobbies or mass-report players to get them banned.

In a social media discussion where one player posted a clip where they claimed they were shadow banned after killing a cheater, one of the supposed hackers posted a screenshot of what looks like a cheat interface that allows them to report a player up to 100 times, thus triggering RICOCHET Anti-Cheat and removing the player from the servers while their account is reviewed. Another hack seems to allow them to kick players from the game by crashing the lobby.

Activision has put out multiple blog posts in recent weeks about how it plans to fix the hacking epidemic, but it doesn’t seem like a potential fix is coming before the holiday break, or soon after, either.

“Cheating remains our top priority, particularly in our Ranked Play environment, and we want to acknowledge the impact it’s having on our players,” Raven Software said on Twitter/X today. “We are working closely with the RICOCHET Anti-Cheat team to pinpoint the sources of this behavior and take the necessary steps to protect our players. This is a matter that we hold close to our heart, as it affects everyone – developers and players alike.”

Previously, Activision said it “did not hit the mark” for the Anti-Cheat experience in BO6 and Warzone, especially in Ranked Play, promising an update for its kernel-level driver in season two and server-side protections in season three. The problem with that is that season two is still about a month away, with season three about three months away, so the hacking problems may continue for the foreseeable future.

Other than cheating and hacking, other issues in Warzone persist. Raven says it’s “continuing to prioritize server performance and enhancing game stability across the board,” including “key updates to movement for increased fluidity and resolved numerous issues with perks and challenges.”

Other quality-of-life improvements coming to Warzone include “faster mantle speeds, rebalanced Perks, Combat Records, and the ability to close doors while running, which should definitely improve the overall feel of engagements.” But for the time being, issues will remain, as Raven says “many of these improvements will ship shortly after the holidays.”