Cold War beta: Console players are disabling cross-play

Footage from the Cold War beta has players worried about running into cheaters, and they’re already taking action.

On Friday, we published a piece about the aimbots, wall hacks, and other various issues plaguing the playtest.

As of this writing, the fourth most popular post in the Black Ops Cold War subreddit is titled “Blatant aimbotter not even attempting to hide it.” And, yeah, it’s pretty blatant — not to mention the number of other video clips illustrating the same problem.

Read more:The Call of Duty Endowment will get a Cold War bundle

Now, as reported by LADbible, players are taking the matter into their own hands. Rather than wait for Activision to properly implement anti-cheat software, players on PS4 and Xbox are simply turning off cross-play in Cold War’s multiplayer.

“The first thing I did yesterday was turn cross-play off,” one Reddit commenter said on Friday. “I’d prefer if I could specifically disable cross-play with PC players,” wrote another. (Not a bad bit of feedback for the devs.)

Anecdotally, this is something I’ve heard more hardcore FPS players discuss quite a bit. Console folks don’t trust the PC population not to bring in cheaters.

When Apex Legends announced it was introducing cross-play, people in my Xbox Live circle immediately became less invested in the title, fearing that aimbots would be the death of it.

Read more:Black Ops Cold War beta changes, patch notes

Reddit users are quick to point out, of course, that consoles aren’t entirely immune to cheaters. Last time I checked, the Xbox 360 version of Call of Duty: World at War was still plagued by modders out to ruin the experience for everyone else.

Hopefully, Activision will be a little more active about eliminating the problem with Cold War when it launches next month.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War launches on November 13.