Call Of Duty: Warzone Ricochet Anti-Cheat Driver For PC Rolls Out This Week

After months of various anti-cheat improvements across the Call of Duty franchise, the previously announced Ricochet anti-cheat kernel-level driver built specifically to counter cheaters and hackers on PC is arriving this week in Call of Duty: Warzone.

What is a kernel-level driver? The short version is that once the driver is installed, it will give Call of Duty: Warzone a high level of access to manage and monitor various applications on a player's PC, checking for any programs that may be attempting to interact or manipulate the game. The driver only runs while Call of Duty: Warzone is being played and shuts down once the game is closed.

The driver will start rolling out to the live game for players in the Asia-Pacific region first before being deployed worldwide, with a blog post from Ricochet development team stating that the staggered rollout for the driver will allow the team to monitor stability and make any necessary updates prior to launching the driver across all regions. Installation of the driver is automatic, and players will soon notice the Ricochet anti-cheat logo as part of the game's loading screen.

It's just the latest step in combating Call of Duty cheaters, which has been an ongoing battle for Activision. More than 475,000 players have been banned, and recent changes to Activision's banning policies now make it so players can be banned from all past, present, and future Call of Duty games. Server-side upgrades for Ricochet anti-cheat have been live in Call of Duty: Vanguard since launch.

The new anti-cheat driver comes alongside the release of Warzone's new Pacific-based Caldera map and the launch of Vanguard season 1. Owners of Vanguard get to play Caldera one day early on December 8, with the map becoming available for all players on December 9.