Team Ricochet has developed a kernel anti-cheat software called Ricochet for the Call of Duty games. This software employs a unique tactic to identify suspected cheaters by creating “hallucinations” visible only to the cheaters. These hallucinations display fake enemies, gathering data to confirm whether a player is using cheat software potentially.
Ricochet Kernel Anticheat Details
Ricochet presents alleged cheaters with an invisible replica of a legitimate player. This visual trickery serves two purposes: it disorients the cheater, preventing them from disrupting legitimate players, and it allows potential cheating software, such as aimbots and wallhacks, to trigger these fake entities. The data collected from the cheater’s interactions with these replicas helps Team Ricochet identify other cheaters using the same software.
A New Approach to Identifying Cheaters
According to Team Ricochet, hallucinating potential cheaters is one of their innovative methods to identify and gather information about cheat software and players. Rather than immediately banning cheaters, the anti-cheat developer employs various measures to disadvantage and hinder them. Team Ricochet removed a mitigation called Quicksand, which slowed down cheaters and occasionally modified random controls, as it was deemed too distracting for legitimate players.
Other Active Mitigations
Other mitigations currently active against cheaters in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II and Warzone 2 include Damage Shield, which reduces damage caused by the cheater’s weapons; Cloaking, which renders legitimate players invisible to cheaters; and Disarm, which causes cheaters’ weapons to disappear suddenly. Team Ricochet asserts that all these measures aim to make a cheater’s life miserable without impeding legitimate players.
Effectiveness of Ricochet and Data Generation
Team Ricochet claims that for every cheater report made by players in Modern Warfare II, they could detect three additional accounts using similar cheat software. Besides inconveniencing and tormenting cheaters, Team Ricochet generates valuable data from players monitored more closely due to the implemented mitigations without adversely affecting legitimate players. However, the company did not provide specific figures regarding the impact of these measures.
