Call of Duty to offer crossplay disabling option as a measure to curb cheating

Activision is amending crossplay functionality in Call of Duty Black Ops 6 Season 3 to allow players to restrict matchmaking to consoles only.

Effectively, this means console players can turn off crossplay with PC players across all the game’s major multiplayer modes, in an effort to limit cheating.

While removing crossplay was already available in the game’s ranked modes, the new options will extend this to all multiplayer modes.

Activision’s focus this season is a “commitment to taking down cheat makers, banning bad actors, and ensuring a great player experience”, the publisher aid.

In an blog post detailing updates to Ricochet, Activision’s anti-cheat tool, the company admitted the majority of cheaters are PC players – although over 60 percent of cheating reports are actually against console players.

“Console cheating is possible, but our data has consistently shown it represents an extremely low population of detected cheaters when compared to PC, which means that this large volume of cheater reports are inaccurate even if the KillCams may have made it seem like the player was cheating,” the update reads.

This is why Activision is now extending its crossplay options to further separate PC and console players, as detailed in its Season 3 Update.

Multiplayer Ranked Play, Call of Duty: Warzone Ranked Play, and Multiplayer Unranked will now have the following three options:

• On: Enables matchmaking with all gaming platforms when playing in the selected playlists.
• On (Consoles Only): Enables matchmaking only with other consoles when playing in selected playlists.
• Off: Restricts matchmaking to your current gaming platform only in selected playlists.

While the Consoles Only option “may” negatively impact queue times, Activision admits the third option “will” negatively impact queue times.

Activision also notes that if a party all belong to the same console, the settings will match those of the party leader. Further, players who have selected Crossplay Off and then create a party across mixed platforms will have their settings temporarily adjusted accordingly.

While the news is a win for console players, it does mean PC players may be left with a higher likelihood of playing against cheaters.

That said, Activision is actively battling cheating in the game. Since Black Ops 6 launched, “over 20 cheat makers and dozens of cheat resellers are out of business due to these efforts,” it said. “And we’re not slowing down.”

Further, 23 percent of cheaters are removed before they even begin a match.

Activision is now adding an additional anti-cheat layer to Ricochet, though isn’t sharing details for security reasons.

Back in January, Activision stated it had banned 136,000 ranked play accounts across both Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and Warzone.

Call of Duty Black Ops 6 Season 3 will begin tomorrow, 3rd April, and adds the classic Verdansk map.