Black Ops 6 expands Ricochet anti-cheat to Ranked after 263,000 bans this year

Activision expanded Ricochet anti-cheat coverage to Black Ops 6's Ranked playlists this week, according to a GamesRadar+ report. The update targets exploit abuse in competitive modes after the studio issued 263,000+ bans across Call of Duty titles in 2026 alone.

Ricochet already ran in Warzone and BO6's casual playlists. The Ranked rollout adds kernel-level monitoring to catch map exploits, wallhacks, and aim assists that slip through server-side detection. Activision didn't specify which exploits triggered the expansion, but Ranked lobbies have seen a spike in out-of-bounds glitches and texture-clipping since Season 4.

This won't fix every cheater overnight — kernel anti-cheat is effective but not perfect, and cheat developers adapt fast. Still, 263,000 bans in seven months is a real enforcement pace, and bringing Ricochet into Ranked at least closes the gap where competitive players were more exposed than casual ones. If you've been dodging Ranked because of suspect lobbies, this might be worth another look.

If you're jumping back into BO6 Ranked, run a fresh optimization playbook to make sure your settings are dialed in — anti-cheat works better when you're not fighting your own frame drops.