“Warzone” developer Activision Blizzard has now introduced the “#DamageShield” in a blog entry. According to this, the measure has been tested for some time. The method is to be used in addition to player bans, writes Activision Blizzard in it. Cheaters would be neutralized while the anti-cheat program Richochet collects information about their system.

In addition, “Team Ricochet”, as Activision Blizzard calls its anti-cheat department, emphasizes that the “Damage Shield” should never be used accidentally or arbitrarily: The developers want to use it to prevent unfair advantages in fair duels. How reliably Activision Blizzard can implement this promise remains to be seen.

In the Warzone community, which is plagued by cheaters, the changes have largely been received positively. Videos are circulating on Reddit that show additional measures against cheaters. Not only do cheaters’ opponents become invulnerable, but they also become temporarily invisible to cheaters when they are shot.

Banns and kernel drivers

Problematic for games like “Call of Duty Warzone” is the speed with which banned players can create a new account. Therefore, in addition to bans, they also rely on additional measures to spoil the fun for cheaters.

Game companies like Activision have been taking stronger action against cheaters for several months. Activision announced its anti-cheat system Ricochet last fall. This includes a team of human checkers, server algorithms for cheat detection and a driver that is supposed to run on Windows at the kernel level. This kernel driver is supposed to detect when other applications or processes want to feed themselves into “Call of Duty: Warzone”.

Meanwhile, many multiplayer titles rely on such kernel drivers to secure their gameplay from wallhacks and aimbots, for example. These include “Valorant”, “#PUBG” and “Apex Legends”, among others. Such anti-cheat systems are regularly discussed in the respective communities: On the one hand, they offer better protection against cheaters than other anti-cheat measures, on the other hand, the comprehensive access rights on the kernel level cause skepticism. The anti-cheat program developed by Denuvo was so controversial among “Doom Eternal” players that the developers subsequently removed it.