In Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and Warzone, cheaters plague the player base. Now, some are showing how they are battling against an opponent whom they believe is cheating. Shortly after, they themselves are kicked from their lobby and receive a ban.
If as a player you encounter an opponent who is obviously cheating, the first step is to report and block them. However, in Call of Duty, cheaters apparently have managed to turn the tables. They report other players – so often at once that they could be kicked from the lobby and receive a “shadowban.”
A shadowban means that you are noted as a suspicious account. Players with a shadowban enter their own matchmaking and only play with and against one another. This is how Activision Blizzard aims to separate suspicious players from non-suspicious ones. This can happen, among other things, if other players report you as a cheater.
Cheaters report players with a single click 100 times
How do cheaters turn the tables? On X, players and streamers report that cheaters are using a tool that allows them to report other players 100 times in Black Ops 6 and Warzone with a single click. A user shows the feature in a screenshot on X.
The numerous reports ensure that those affected are kicked from the lobby and receive a shadowban.
In a clip on X, a player shows how he fights an opponent who is shooting at him. In the post, he writes, “We take out a cheater, and I’m the one who immediately gets a shadowban?”
Whether the opponent is actually cheating is unclear. What is clear, however, is that the player is kicked from his lobby as soon as his teammate eliminates the opponent. In the message that appears afterward, it states, translated roughly: “You have been disconnected from the ‘Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’ servers.” And afterward: “You have been temporarily banned from the ‘Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’ servers.”
His options after the message are: View guidelines, restart, and exit game.
What can I do in this case? According to Activision, temporary bans last from 48 hours to 2 weeks or longer, depending on the severity of the violation. On the website, there is the option to report and contest a ban.
Whether Activision is aware of the problem and will do something about it is unknown at this time. Recently, there were problems with cheaters in the ranked mode of Black Ops 6. The developers admitted that their anti-cheat is to blame for it:
As early as September 2024, even before the release of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, one of the world’s most famous CoD players warned of declining player numbers if Activision does not take action against cheaters. More about that can be found here: CoD legend warns: Player counts in Black Ops 6 will decline rapidly if Activision does not address a major problem
