Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 pledges "hourly sweeps" to combat continued cheating

Activision has said it is conducting "hourly sweeps" ofCall of Duty: Black Ops 6's Ranked Play mode and leaderboards, as work to try and combat the game's cheating problem continues.

More than 19k bans have been slapped down by Activision's anti-cheat squad Team Ricochet since Ranked Play went live in Black Ops 6 last week, the publisher revealed in a social mediapost.

Meanwhile, in the background, Ricochet's AI systems "continue to ramp up with code optimisations to accelerate enforcements," the company wrote. "Thanks for your patience as our team continues to fight against cheaters."

Black Ops 6's ultra-competitive Ranked Play mode launched on 21st November to a mixed response, with criticism of how prevalent cheating seemed.

"19k banned, 25k new accounts created," was the response of one fan to Activision's post. "Year four of hearing this," said another.

Activision said earlier this month it hadtuned up Ricochet's detection systems ahead of Ranked Play's launch, though those changes had been more focused around the "disruptive behaviour" of players going AFK to boost account levels, or using alternate accounts via VPNs.

Activision last week boasted that Black Ops 6 had been the biggest launch for a Call of Duty ever, with the best total players, hours played and numer of matches played in the game's first 30 days. Adding it to Xbox Game Pass seems to have helped, then.

"For a series built on high-octane thrills and explosive gratification, its withdrawal to the well-trodden formula echoes the wider industry's continued allergy to risk," Chris Tapsell wrote inEurogamer's Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 review.