Call of Duty's Ingenious Tactics to Combat Cheaters

Activision's Ricochet anti-cheat system in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II is deploying "hallucinations," which are decoy characters visible only to suspected or confirmed cheaters. These lifelike clones of real players emit the same data as genuine characters, forcing cheaters to self-identify and slowing them down. Another mitigation called quicksand, which slowed or froze cheaters' movement, has been shelved due to its impact on legitimate gamers. Activision also reported a 59% drop in the use of third-party hardware devices providing unfair advantages, thanks to a newly deployed detection method.