Warzone Bans Another 30,000 Cheaters, But Is It Enough?

As we recently opined, Warzone has been with us for over a year now.

Call of Duty's second stab at the Battle Royale genre has been much more enduring than the last, but whenever extolling the virtues of a holiday to Verdansk, it always feels like a caveat is needed.

"Is Warzone worth hopping into?" many ask, a question spurred by its ludicrous file size more than anything else, and while it's undoubtedly a fantastic time, it feels like we're still at the mercy of cheaters, even a year on. 

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Warzone Bans Another 30,000 Cheaters, But Is It Enough?

This entire article should be prefaced by saying I have no experience in game development, nor do I really know what goes into developing anti-cheat systems.

Battle Royale is, in many ways, the ultimate test of skill. It's a game mode, nay, a genre, built on adapting to new tactical considerations on the fly. That makes it doubly frustrating to be hit by a bullet that flew through an entire chunk of land before burying itself in our virtual cranium.

While the question as to why cheaters cheat is one for the psychology buffs, it feels like Warzone is approaching a tipping point.

Last week in-game character Mara's actress outed a pair of cheaters on stream, in a Warzone tournament, to ban them from Twitch. This is such a common issue now that even those affiliated with the game online can call out a pair of hackers and get them removed from Twitch.

It's just the latest example of the level of cheating going on in Warzone, and while it feels as though Activision is slowly catching up to those involved (having now banned hundreds of thousands of accounts), it's undoubtedly starting to wear down the game's community.

Activision has also told PC Gamer that it's banned another 30,000 accounts in its latest wave, but does that go far enough? A free-to-play game has zero barriers to entry, meaning players can just create a new account to circumnavigate a ban and while they've lost their ill-gotten gains, it doesn't take long to recover those when they can use all sorts of underhanded methods to win, win, and win.

It likely makes alternative battle royale titles look more appealing, and while it would be churlish to suggest that any online game is likely to be entirely free of cheaters, Apex Legends feels like it doesn't have quite so pervasive a network of cheaters.

It feels as though players would likely be happy to forgo new content in the hopes that these longstanding issues are addressed. Here's hoping it's sorted soon, as Warzone is otherwise an excellent experience that plenty of our team here love jumping into.