The multiplayer beta for Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is now live in its early access period for users who've pre-ordered the game and Xbox Game Pass subscribers. It'll be live for anyone who wants to check out the beta, not included in those two categories, on October 5, but even before it opens to the general public, reports have surfaced across social media that cheaters are running amuck through the game.
Spotted by Eurogamer, after a bunch of talk from Treyarch and Activision about its new and improved anti-cheat, which even goaded cheaters on by saying, "Cheaters will try to test the limits during the Beta. That’s exactly what we want because #TeamRICOCHET is here, watching, learning, and removing them as they appear," cheaters have taken up the challenge Activison put to them.
In fairness, the above clip comes from an account that Treyarch has already found and banned, so the team is indeed doing its best to get rid of cheaters as they appear, but this doesn't say very much about the preventative measures, like adding the same Secure Boot protections that Battlefield 6 has, in Black Ops 7.
Is it enough for Treyarch to ban these accounts after they've already gotten in-game and ruined a match or two? On one level, yes, as long as cheaters are being caught, then you could argue that's the anti-cheat protections working well. That said, the players who have their matches ruined by cheaters who are only caught after the fact might not feel that way.
As long as there are people playing multiplayer games, there will be those who will cheat, and it's a constant battle for developers to minimize the impact of cheaters as much as possible. But it's worth asking what these kernel-level measures are for if they're not even prepared for the opening hours of an annual beta test.
About the author: David has been writing about videogames, technology, and culture since 2020, with a focus on reporting daily news across multiple publications, including GameDaily.Biz, GameSkinny, and PlayStation Universe before joining Wccftech in 2025. David started contributing as Canada/US reporter for Wccftech's gaming section in 2025. Besides being up-to-date on the industry's movements, he loves interviewing developers, reviewing games, and writing intricate essays about the symbolism and layered meanings to be found in rich narratives as he's done for publications like GamesIndustry.Biz, LostInCult, and others. Outside of games he loves movies, music, theatre, his hometown, and his family, though not necessarily in that order.
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