you should have (a little) fewer cheaters in your games

Shortly after The Finals, it’s Call of Duty’s turn (and its Warzone mode) to tackle tools for using aim assist with your keyboard/mouse combo.

Call of Duty and cheaters, it’s a long-standing story. The most popular multiplayer game on the planet is the target of choice for the most malicious players, especially since the release of its very popular Warzone mode in 2019.

If Activision tries to catch up in the fight against cheating with its Ricochet software, the perpetual game of cat and mouse continues: while players can now benefit from aim assistance (aim-assist) while playing keyboard/mouse, the editor seems to follow the example of The Finals and implemented measures long awaited by players.

L’aim-assist targeted

There is barely anything, free-to-play The Finals announced that it would punish players using programs that allow them to emulate the use of a controller with their keyboard and mouse, and thus benefit from aiming assistance.

Shortly after this announcement, Activision declared that it was targeting players using these tools, who would be punished by simply closing the Call of Duty executable. In the event of repeated use, the player’s account may be banned, or in any case punished.

Whether it’s accessories or software like reWASD, many players use these indirect means of cheating in the middle of a game, giving them a certain advantage without relying on dedicated cheat programs. Devices like the XIM and Cronus Zen can integrate macros to reduce weapon recoil and increase aim assist, among other things.

The eternal hunt for cheaters

But between the promises, already proclaimed with great fanfare last year, and reality, there is sometimes a gulf. These devices and tools are constantly evolving, with new scripts, but also simple executable renaming (yes, yes), which sometimes allows it to remain undetected by Ricochet.

If a software tool like reWASD can be easily detected, the task will be more complex in the context of devices like the Cronus Zen or the XIM: it is very easy on a PC to pass off one device for another, in particular by falsifying the vendor ID of a USB device read by an anti-cheat tool.

So we haven’t finished hearing about this type of cheating in Call of Dutyplayers have not stopped complaining despite the measures put in place by Activision and are now demanding a more profound modification of theaim assist.