How ‘Call of Duty: Warzone’ Publisher Activision Blizzard Is Keeping Cheaters At Bay

“We have zero tolerance for cheaters,” battle royale shooter developer Infinity Ward says

Activison's new "Call of Duty" remake of "Modern Warfare" is engaging fans.

It’s not easy to master the new Activision Blizzard battle royale shooter “Call of Duty: Warzone,” but the game’s developers will not tolerate players trying to cheat to get ahead.

The free game and its developers Infinity Ward are taking steps to make sure cheaters aren’t allowed back into public match-making games by creating lobbies for “suspected” or confirmed cheaters.

If a player is reported for cheating, their next deployment will send them to a separate matchmaking arena just for rule-breakers, Infinity Ward tweeted Thursday. The idea is that by forcing cheaters to take a bit of their own medicine and play against other cheaters, they’ll be encouraged to abide by the rules to get back into the regular game.

Players can cheat many ways in “Warzone,” including boosting weapon stats or purchasing hacks from third-party developers that claim to unlock extra loot. Law-abiding users can report any suspected cheaters to Infinity Ward, which will swiftly ban them.

Infinity Ward said in April it removed over 70,000 users for suspected cheating, and noted, “we’re continuing to deploy dedicated security updates and work continues on improving in-game reporting.”

“We are watching. We have zero-tolerance for cheaters,” Infinity Ward added.

“Call of Duty: Warzone” was released March 10 to add the popular battle royale-style of multiplayer combat to the new “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare” game. It was in part Activision’s attempt to poach users from other popular battle royale-style games, like Epic Games’ “Fornite” or Valve’s “Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.”

Infinity Ward also said it would implement a feature that will let players report cheating even if they are just spectating and not actively playing a match.

In the month after its launch, “Call of Duty: Warzone” counted 50 million players globally, Activision said. The game is available on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox hardware.

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