New Call of Duty anti-cheat feature called Cloaking makes players invisible to cheaters

Call of Duty players can now enjoy a new anti-cheat feature within the game, ensuring fair play online. The new feature works by cloaking the regular players from those using cheats or hacks, making them both invisible to them and invincible against their actions. The anti-cheat measure will be applied automatically to anyone using cheats within Call of Duty.

The new anti-cheat measure has been detailed in a new blog by Ricochet, the team behind the earlier features meant to curb cheating, as seen in Call of Duty. The feature is called Cloaking, and will first be seen on Call of Duty: Vanguard, as mentioned in the blog. After a period of examination, the feature will be extended to the driver for Warzone.

With Cloaking, any player using a cheat within Call of Duty, as and when detected by the system, will be unable to see opposing players in the game world. The blog mentions that "characters, bullets, even sound from legitimate players will be undetectable to cheaters."

On the contrary, gamers who are playing fair will be able to see the cheaters, even when they are affected by cloaking. Hence, any legitimate player will be able to spot and shoot a cheater within the online game of Call of Duty: Vanguard. The Cloaking feature will thus work to minimise the impact of cheaters, regardless of any illicit software they use.

In its blog, Ricochet mentions how the Cloaking feature will be offered on top of its previous anti-cheat measure known as Damage Shield. The feature was launched in February and effectively granted all players an infinite shield against damage from a cheater.

So, we know that Cloaking is not the first feature of its kind. It is, however, the latest attempt at a new strategy to discourage cheats in Call of Duty. The strategy focuses on mitigating the impact of cheaters on the game, instead of weeding them out through bans. While the latter is tough as it requires individual detection, such mitigation can be ensured as a blanket technique across the several titles of the popular game.

Damage Shield and Cloaking do just that. The first one protects the legitimate players from cheaters. The latter now gives them the ability to kill cheaters and take them out of the game just like that.

Of course, the team still continues its process of banning accounts found to be using cheating methods. "While we may not announce all bans as they happen, know they occur both daily and in waves," Ricochet notes in the blog, adding that it has now banned over 54,000 additional COD accounts. Since cheaters are in constant pursuit of working around these mitigation techniques, Ricochet also encourages COD players to manually report such cheaters when spotted online.