Oh boy, it’s happening again. The war between cheaters and Call of Duty’s anti-cheat software is kicking off once again. This time, the battle is rumbling aroun the Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 beta, where early testing of Activision Blizzard’s home-grown Ricochet anti-cheat software is ticking away and stamping out cheaters where it can.

However, as is the way with this sort of thing, cheaters are hard at work trying to figure out their way around such measures. Already there are clips of cheats in-action within beta matches, but for the moment bans come fast as long as reports land on suspicious players.

For those who are unaware, there’ll be a back and forth between cheaters reigning supreme, and massive ban waves. Cheaters tend to run wild during periods in which the Ricochet anti-cheat team is gathering data, taking note of cheating accounts, and updating the software to clamp down on current workarounds. This then leads to massive ban waves, leaving a vast majority of cheaters banned and the game relatively pleasant to play while cheat developers work to find new workarounds. It’s the circle of CoD life, and it moves us all.

At the moment, the beta is relatively cheat-free, but you can expect this to gradually shift over time. Thankfully, due to the beta’s short running-time, it shouldn’t get too bad. When the game comes out properly, expect this cycle to kick off in a major way. The Ricochet team has posted an update stating that tuning and adjustments are being made to the anti-cheat right now, which is some good news for the health of the game for the forseeable future.

Call of Duty: Vanguard suffered the same fate in regards to cheating, as did Modern Warfare II. It’s just the way it goes! So have fun while the cheaters are on the back foot, and pray the Ricochet team stays strong in the coming months.