Call of Duty: Black Ops 7’s multiplayer beta is shaping up to be as much a security stress test as it is a gameplay preview.
Activision said it entered this phase so the new RICOCHET anti-cheat could face real cheating attempts and help the team improve its defenses.
For the first time in the series, the publisher is making Trusted Platform Module 2.0 and Secure Boot mandatory at the hardware level.
These requirements are designed to stop tampered hardware and cheat loaders that launch before the operating system.
The company issued a detailed pre-beta blog on September 29 describing the test as a “critical opportunity” to track attackers.
They directly said cheaters would “test the limits” during the beta, which is exactly the plan.
RICOCHET will monitor those attempts in real time, issue bans that apply across every Call of Duty title (past and future), and feed the data back into its detection models.
Why Did Activision Make TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot Non-Negotiable?
Both features run below the operating system and make it harder for cheat tools to load before Windows starts.
They come pre-enabled on many new PCs, especially those made for Windows 11, but switching them on yourself can be difficult.
Players may need to switch drives to GPT, adjust BIOS settings, or update firmware, but older systems might not allow it.
Battlefield 6 used the same method earlier this year, and its own technical director admitted it frustrated some players who couldn’t get their rigs to comply.
Activision published guides for each hardware brand to help players enable TPM and Secure Boot and shared BIOS update links for common PC boards.
The company says the process can feel daunting, but insists it’s now the backbone of a layered defense and will become even stricter at launch.
Did Cheaters Really Flood the Beta on Day One?
The early-access beta opened on October 2 and almost immediately saw aimbot and wallhack clips spread across social media.
Strange killcams appeared just hours in, and players joked that cheaters were already back before the paint dried.
The wave was no shock to Activision, which practically predicted it in its blog, but the optics were poor. Many fans questioned whether the so-called “most advanced anti-cheat” was failing on day one.
Team RICOCHET responded by confirming live bans were already hitting offenders and reiterated that the biggest upgrades aren’t active yet.
The idea is to gather telemetry on how cheats bypass the current protections, then tighten detection and enforcement before November 14’s full release.
What Extra Defenses Are Coming at Launch?
Behind the scenes, Activision says it has trained detection models on millions of hours of play to spot suspicious behavior faster.
It’s also stepping up legal action against cheat sellers, trying to cut off monetization outside the game itself.
When the game launches, the anti-cheat will use remote attestation, with servers verifying TPM and Secure Boot status through Microsoft Azure instead of relying on the local PC.
That approach is much harder to spoof and is meant to shut down one of the last reliable paths for cheat developers.