Call of Duty: Warzone has introduced some of the most competitive gameplay scenarios ever known in the gaming industry. The game made by Activision is amongst the best battle royales in the market, and with Season 3 rolling out, Activision is actively addressing issues that have been a problem since a long time.
Activision is finally acknowledging a major issue in Warzone that has been rampant for several years. Of course, we are talking about players getting shadowbanned in the game.
Suspicious players get shadowbanned in Warzone
Warzone has forever been riddled with cheaters and hackers who exploit the game’s integral systems and make sure that other players don’t have a nice experience at all. Although Activision has implemented tons of ways to make sure that players don’t cheat in the game, like their anti-cheat system RICOCHET, most of them have been inadequate in the face of hackers.
One of the methods Activision thought of to control cheaters in Warzone is to shadowban suspicious players. This meant that if any players’ accounts were suspicious, then instead of outright banning them, they would be matched against players who were also in the same situation.
While this limited matchmaking idea was meant as a way to check if players were actually hacking in the game or not, the technique quickly backfired when players who were not involved in any kind of suspicious activity would also be subject to the shadowban.
We’re excited to share an update on our Anti-Cheat efforts and upgrades ahead of Season 03, including intel on:
🏆 Ranked Play mitigations
⛔ Bans
📃 Reporting & UI Updates
➕ MoreTap into today’s #TeamRICOCHET Season 03 Blog 👉 https://t.co/R1pT3GGZ28 pic.twitter.com/WRHQb4Ifpt
— Call of Duty (@CallofDuty) March 28, 2025
This became a huge issue because it didn’t not affect just one person. If you play with your squad and get shadowbanned, then your entire squad will have to play in that limited matchmaking lobby.
In Activision’s recent blog post, they addressed this issue and revealed that almost 0.15% of the entire population in Black Ops 6 and Warzone are currently shadowbanned, but this number can increase depending on whether the affected play with a party or not.
The blog post also mentioned how, with Season 2, they had already reduced the time when players would be in that limited matchmaking state, and they are willing to bring in more changes that will make the process even quicker.
Activision finally decided to step up to tackle the issue
The shadowban lobbies in Warzone have forever been a double-edged sword, and while it was designed to combat cheaters, many innocent players have also been affected by it. Although Activision has acknowledged the issue of how even safe players are getting penalised with the limited matchmaking system, just acknowledgement is not enough until the matter gets fixed.
Activision has promised that with Season 3 rolling out, they will work on ways to combat cheaters and make the game a more enjoyable experience for everyone, and with changes to their anti-cheat system, the promise doesn’t seem too far-fetched. Whether Activision will be able to eradicate this problem completely or not, we remain hopeful to see Warzone without any hackers one day.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
