Before the launch of Modern Warfare 3 and the next generation of Warzone, Activision’s Team RICOCHET has been working on hot new updates for the anti-cheat engine. In a blog post that updated Call of Duty fans on the new features coming to RICOCHET, one particularly hilarious anti-cheat mechanic stood out. It’s called ‘Splat’, and it messes with a cheater’s game and effectively makes it unplayable, but it’s how it does it that’s so special.

With Splat, anyone detected as cheating in the pre-game lobby will find that they’re jumping out of the entry plane without a parachute. Not only that, but Splat will also adjust the situation if the cheater is detected after they’ve successfully deployed. At that point, their velocity will be tweaked automatically, turning a small jump into a 10,000-foot drop, instantly killing them.

It’s bizarre, but it’ll get the job done.

RICOCHET is Weird, But it Works

Activision’s Team RICOCHET has stressed that this feature is safe and it won’t ‘randomly turn on’ for users that aren’t detected as cheating. It also won’t be triggered by player-based reporting. In the blog post written on the Call of Duty website, it was said:

‘As important as it is for us to continue to fight on behalf of all our players – which includes us – we know that part of the confidence you have in our systems is when you can see them working to protect your experience in real-time. Visuals are important to our players and that’s why a few months ago we added the RICOCHET Anti-Cheat logo to the kill feed, so players could see the system protecting them in real-time.’

Not only that but Team RICOCHET is also using Machine Learning to ‘find new cheat behaviours’ in client and server data, and to actively challenge behaviour that’s described as being ‘abnormal’. Simply put, Machine Learning will help human operators identify strange or malicious behaviour in the sea of normal data and ‘legitimate’ players.

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It was stressed in the breakdown that Team RICOCHET analyses some 700 gameplay clips every day, attempting to crack down on the constant feed of cheaters plaguing the Call of Duty community. With an all-new ‘Replay Investigation Tool’, the Machine Learning model can automatically review up to 1,000 clips per day – and that’s a number that’s growing.

It’s encouraging to see Activision’s teams clamping down on cheaters over time, but it’s still far from being perfect.

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