Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 Beta Players Already Encountering Cheaters

By Elijah Gonzalez  |  October 3, 2025 | 2:30pm
Video Games News call of duty: Black ops 7
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 Beta Players Already Encountering Cheaters

The early-access beta for Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 went live yesterday, and players have already started to encounter wallhackers, aimbotters, and other varieties of no-good cheaters. User HateToSeeMeComing posted a clip on X of themselves using an aimbot, while the streamer Stodeh posted a video of a player shooting through walls and getting other near-impossible kills. Stodeh typed in the game’s chat, “bro is this guy cheating in hour 3 of beta lmao,” to which another player responded, “this guy was cheatin on hour 0.”

While Activision has apparently already started to ban accounts for cheating, including the one in Stodeh’s video, many players are a little worn down by the problem. To combat this, Activision previously announced that it would be utilizing a new form of anti-cheat, an updated version of Ricochet.

Specifically, the game requires users on PC to have both Secure Boot and TPM 2.0 enabled, something that gives Activision’s anti-cheat software kernel-level access to your computer. Basically, having “kernel-level access” means that the software can get at the deepest levels of your operating system, giving it a great deal of administrative privileges. The technology is very controversial among players, many of whom dislike the idea of providing this much control and information to the companies behind the games they play.

One good example is how the world champion Destiny 2 player was automatically banned from the game for having cheat software that he alleged he was using for a completely different game: the single-player mode of Total War: Shogun 2.

Activision has said that Ricochet uses “advanced machine learning systems on millions of hours of gameplay” to detect cheaters. Beyond this, the company said, “We’re striking cheat makers and sellers from every angle: in-game detections that stop them cold, and legal action that dismantles their operations.” Honestly, that last bit is way too much: guys, it’s a video game, not a human trafficking ring, it is truly not that serious.

Overall, though, only time will tell if these “tough on cheaters” policies introduced by Activision will bear fruit, as the first few hours of a beta certainly isn’t enough of a sample size.

 
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