Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 has suffered under the weight of cheaters due to poor implementation of the proprietary RICOCHET anti-cheat system following the launch of Season 1 in December. From scripting devices to unlock tools and wall-hacking software, more players than ever have likely encountered a disruptive player utilizing a third-party tool for an unfair advantage.
Despite acknowledging data outages that affected RICOCHET anti-cheat, Activision and the developers responsible for Call of Duty were still under fire from players and pros alike, who were threatening to abandon Black Ops 6 and Warzone unless the system changed.
One oft-requested feature from the console players in the community was the ability to disable cross play with PC players. This is based on the idea that cheating is more rampant on PC, where players have easier access to third-party software that can be installed and running in the background.
That's not to say cheating is impossible on console, but it does take a more dedicated cheater to make it happen. To help mitigate concerns of cheating PC players, Treyarch has finally conceded and is allowing cross play to be split for Black Ops 6 Ranked Play.
The steps for turning off cross play are the same in both Black Ops 6 and Warzone.
How to opt out of cross play in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and Warzone on Xbox
- From the Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 title splash screen, select Ranked Play.
- Press the Menu button on your Xbox Series X|S or Xbox One controller.
- From the drop-down menu on the right side of the screen, press right bumper to tab into the Settings menu.
- Select Account and Network from the Settings menu.
- On the Account and Network menu, select Ranked Crossplay.
- Another menu will drop down, providing you three options for Ranked Crossplay settings.
- On allows matchmaking with all other gaming platforms on Ranked playlists.
- On (Console Only) allows matchmaking between Xbox and PlayStation consoles when searching for matches in Ranked playlists.
- Off limits matchmaking exclusively to the console platform you are currently playing on.
- Select which option you prefer and Apply Settings. You may now back out to the lobby and search with your preferred platforms.
Little more than a workaround for lacking anti-cheat
There's some commendation to be had on Treyarch's part for recognizing the voices of the Call of Duty community and offering a workaround for players who were frustrated by their gaming experience. However, segregating platform communities does about as much to fix the issue as putting a bandage on an axe wound.
Call of Duty doesn't need platform separation, it needs a good working anti-cheat solution. The current solution only alleviates console players from encountering would-be cheaters on PC, but it does nothing to alleviate the struggles of PC players who may also be encountering cheaters and other disruptive players through no fault of their own. It also doesn't help console players from having negative interactions with other console players who may be using cheat hardware.
There are some good things to be said for RICOCHET, but there's also a lot to find frustration with. The Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 launch was undeniably successful, and it wasn't until the launch of Season 1 that players began to become vocal about rampant cheating. So there's clearly a reference point for when RICOCHET worked, at least to an extent that it was satisfactory enough for the community to not want to leave in droves. The trick is finding at what point it actually fell apart and why.
With Treyarch focusing on solutions like platform segregation, there's some concern that we may never actually find a proper anti-cheat that works full stop. And that's before we even take into consideration that RICOCHET is a kernel-level driver that has had issues with falsely flagging players for cheats simply for having RGB controllers installed. A massive outage hit 8.5 million PCs as a result of a kernel-level bug during testing in CrowdStrike security software in June 2024, an outage that left more and more users wary of software that has access to the Windows kernel.
While Activision shared are community update on the current state of RICOCHET for Black Ops 6 Season 2, there's still plenty of room for improvement as the shooter progresses through its seasonal post-launch content.
