Season 1 of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is barely out, and it has already come with plenty of drama. This time, it is about the top of the leaderboards.

The latest Treyarch title is the best thing to come to the series in years, and players have grown particularly protective of it.

While the campaign has earned its spot in the Call of Duty Hall of Fame, the multiplayer side is struggling with endemic cheating.

Yesterday, the RICOCHET anti-cheat announced it was employing AI systems to improve detection speed, with hourly ban waves for those caught foul.

The company has banned 19,000 cheaters since the leaderboards launched, but a certain Hanser stood out.

Profiling A Suspect

The user by the name of Hanser had been dominating the leaderboards of Black Ops 6Season 1, but the competitive Call of Duty community knew him before the game launched.

Hanser stood out by seemingly having all the skills required to compete in professional Call of Duty competitions, but sticking to regular ranked play instead.

According to Spanish streamer Taison TV, who runs an anti-cheat ‘hotline’ through his social media pages, Hanser has been reported to Activision for suspicious activity for at least six months.

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It continues to be a record-setting launch for Black Ops 6.

Taison claims the disgraced chart-topper has been using direct memory access (DMA) cheats, both discreetly and overtly (‘rage hacking’).

While the subtle use of DMA cheating is hard to detect, rage hacking is easy to spot so long as there is footage of the offending player to enforce a manual ban.

Most modern anti-cheat solutions also have automated detection systems for when players pull off moves that are impossible without a little external ‘help’.

Although the latest Call of Duty ban wave is a welcome move, many players doubt that it will have a lasting effect on the cheating situation.

Taking the Hanser situation as an example, if it takes six months of manual reports on top of any automated detection ones to ban a cheater that eventually crawled to the top of the leaderboards, can players trust Activision and its anti-cheating systems to keep the game clean?

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Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Zombies Map, Citadelle Des Morts, Releasing December 5th

Citadelle Des Morts is the third Zombies map featured in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6.

Released

October 25, 2024

Engine

IW 9.0

ESRB

Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Suggestive Themes, Strong Language, Use of Drugs

X|S Optimized

Yes

Split Screen Orientation

Vertical or Horizontal

Number of Players

1-4

PS Plus Availability

N/A

Steam Deck Compatibility

Unknown

Local Co-Op Support

1-2 Players

OpenCritic Rating

Strong

Cross Save

Yes – PlayStation, Xbox, PC

Cross-Platform Play

Yes – PlayStation, Xbox, PC

PC Release Date

October 25, 2024

PS5 Release Date

October 25, 2024

Xbox Series X|S Release Date

October 25, 2024

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