The launch of Season 2 for Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and Warzone is a huge deal, and console players especially should be pleased. In light of the rampant cheating in the game, driven mostly by PC players, consoles will finally have the option to play ranked modes among themselves.
Treyarch has confirmed that the new feature is going live at the launch of Season 2, currently scheduled for 9 a.m. Pacific (12 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. UK) on January 28. With it, folks playing Ranked Play on Xbox and PlayStation will now have a choice to exclude PC players from their matchmaking pools.
While the Ricochet anticheat is supposed to be getting its own big upgrade, nobody is sure if it'll do anything significant to curb the problem. Many top players have already floated that they'll move from PC to console to get away from the hackers, and from today, that will be an option.
Here's what you need to know.
How Ranked Play in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and Warzone will work from Season 2 on Xbox and PlayStation
The most important thing to note is that the new console-only crossplay feature is not enabled by default. In an ideal world, Activision wants all the best players from all platforms dukeing it out together in ranked.
That works on paper, but in practice, Season 1 has been a complete disaster. Ricochet just doesn't work, and most legitimate players are either moving on to other games or starting to wear really thin on patience.
The option to play only against other console players is one many in the community have asked for. The cheats being used on PC aren't applicable currently on console, so the theory is that the experience should be fairer, and genuinely more competitive.
There will be three options from Season 2 regarding who console players want to play against in Ranked Play on both Xbox and PlayStation.
- Full crossplay between Xbox, PlayStation and PC players
- Console-only crossplay between Xbox and PlayStation players
- Console-specific crossplay between only players on the same console platform
Full crossplay will be an opt-out feature, meaning you'll need to go and select one of the other options before you play. Treyarch hasn't mentioned a console-only ladder for Ranked Play, meaning that as it seems right now, you'll still be able to climb towards the Top 250 globally based on your SR gains.
Console players are pre-warned that eliminating PC players from their crossplay options may result in longer matchmaking times, but for most, it's probably worth it. If it helps have a better experience, I know I'll be absolutely fine waiting a little longer to get into a game should I not be lasered by cheaters every single time.
