Call of Duty: Vanguard had an open beta for players to get a taste of the multiplayer recently. These beta periods serve a lot of purpose for developers, because they can not only get some immediate feedback on the game but do some stress tests with actual players. Unfortunately, these are also an opportunity for players to expose flaws in the game and one flaw, in particular, has been a continuous problem for the developers of CoD.
Hackers are once again invading a Call of Duty game. Players of Warzone are well aware of the hackers that have been prevalent throughout the game’s history. As developers try to ban and come up with new ways to combat the hacks, ways to get around those safeguards always seem to be popping up. Unfortunately for the developers of Vanguard, it looks like they’ve found a way around whatever safeguards they had for the Beta because hackers have already been spotted throughout the weekend.
https://twitter.com/BennyLongStroke/status/1438918580012154880
Obviously, the players who are caught hacking are going to be banned but this is a part of a much larger issue for Call of Duty and, generally, anyone who plays online shooters. Cheating is more prevalent than ever with the technology surrounding hacking becoming just as, if not more, advanced than most anti-cheat software that is being installed in the game. It leaves developers with two options. Either constantly try to work to stay ahead of these cheaters, which is a challenge in itself, or use anti-cheat devices that while effective are controversial and invade player privacy. Hacking has become such a problem in games like Apex Legends and Titanfall 2 that it has led to players protesting the game and uninstalling it in fear of hacks more malicious than cheating.
For players who aren’t on PC don’t think that this issue doesn’t impact you as well. As more games move towards allowing crossplay these cheaters are now gaining access to lobbies full of console players as well as PC players. This means that nobody is safe from the wave of cheating that is currently taking place in video games. It might not be a crisis right now, but it’s only getting more prevalent and it feels like fewer companies are aware of how to do much more than slow it down. This is a problem that isn’t going away anytime soon. If anything it’s about to get worse.