A popular Call of Duty player has ended his Warzone game because he is ‘saturated with hackers’.
Vikkstar – which has more than seven million subscribers on YouTube – said the game was in “the worst condition it has ever been”.
Warzone was released last March and is played by more than 50 million people worldwide.
Activision, the publisher, had earlier said it had zero tolerance for fraudsters.
The British Vikkstar – nicknamed Vikram Singh Barn – explained in a video on YouTube why he is leaving.
“The game is in the worst state it has ever been, and Activision really does not speak to how many hackers are in the game,” he said.
“It has to be fixed otherwise it will be the death of the game.”
‘Absolute joke’
The video also shows the game where Vikkstar claimed to have contracted one hacker live on Facebook while also playing the game.
“What an absolute joke,” he said.
“We happened to catch these random people in it, but often you don’t even know when people are doing what we just saw.”
Hackers can be found in almost every lobby of the game, he added.
It comes just over a week after another popular Call of Duty streamer, NickMercs, announced he was leaving the game.
Unfortunately, without anti-cheat, authentic Warzone tournaments are simply no longer possible. We learned a lot from those Gauntlets and I’ve been told they’re all … There’s too much cheese and way too many rats. Bob & weave baby.
– FaZe Nickmercs (@NICKMERCS) 22 January 2021
In a stream on Twitch, he said: ‘There are all kinds of hacks … there is no pride in this thing [playing tournaments] more.
“Where is the dignity? Where is the system of honor?”
Last April, Activision posted a message on its blog saying, ‘Warzone has no tolerance for fraudsters.
“We take all forms of fraud very seriously. It is one of our highest priorities to maintain a level playing field,” he added.
“It’s an area we’ve been working on a lot, but it’s not always something we discuss in public.”
The blog has issued more than 70,000 permanent bans on accounts since the game’s release.
‘We realize that there is no single solution for fraudsters; it is a constant application every day, 24/7. Rest assured, we are committed to ensuring a fun and fair experience for all. ”
The BBC contacted Activision for a response to the latest complaints.
Popular hacks
One example of how players can cheat is by using a so-called ‘aimbot’. This allows the accurate shooting of participants without having to aim manually.
Another popular cheat is a “wall hack”, which allows the user to see the location of other players in the game and attack them through opaque objects such as walls.
With other hacks, users can hide and win by default, or heal themselves infinitely many times.
“This software is usually difficult to write, but easy to install,” says Sam Connolly, an expert computer scientist at the University of Central Lancashire.
‘Cheats are often downloaded by hackers and set up relatively easily on their own computers.
“Call of Duty has always had a history of hackers … it’s unfortunately a problem that is not unique to one type of game, but that seems widespread in many first-person shooters.”
Players have asked Activision to implement anti-cheat technologies to address the issue.
Other games, including Fortnite and Fall Guys, have developed software to tackle attempts to unfairly win their own battle-royal last player titles.
“One problem with this type of anti-cheat software program is that sincere players will be wrongly banned on a larger scale, and the unbanning process is usually tough,” said Louise Shorthouse, senior analyst at Ampere Analysis.
“Burglary proposals have been made during official Warzone tournaments, which are extremely detrimental to the competitive integrity of the Call of Duty brand.”
Activision recently announced plans to bring Warzone to its professional e-sports Call of Duty League.
“Without addressing the issue of fraud, its success and reputation as an e-sport will undoubtedly suffer,” Shorthouse added.