In the never-ending war against hackers in PC gaming, top publishers are enforcing whatever tools they have at their disposal to keep games fair. Call of Duty will soon be joining Battlefield in this regard.
Activision announced today that Black Ops 7 will enforce Secure Boot on PC, in tandem with Trusted Platform Module (TPM 2.0) and its RICOCHET Anti-Cheat system, to hopefully curb the rampant cheating that’s been happening in CoD for many years now.
“When you play multiplayer, your PC connects to our servers to enable online play,” Activision explained. “If TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot are on, Windows runs a security check at startup. The results of that check are passed to us when you connect, confirming your system hasn’t been tampered with. The final check happens on our servers, making it harder to spoof and ensuring the process is secure from start to finish.”
Activision was quick to assuage concerns by saying “this process doesn’t give us access to your personal files or information,” but that it “only verifies that your system booted cleanly.”
Some PC FPS players were greeted with a Secure Boot error when attempting to launch the Battlefield 6 open beta client earlier this week, so this may become the industry standard moving forward. Enabling Secure Boot requires entering your PC’s BIOS and changing a setting, and it’s left many confounded and annoyed.
Personally? I’m good on this Secure Boot stuff, because I can’t really be bothered to tinker with my computer’s settings. Games like Battlefield 6, and now BO7, will be console purchases for me from now on. I have to use that PS5 Pro for something, anyway.
“Protecting the Call of Duty experience is Team RICOCHET’s highest priority,” Activision said. “Cheating and hacking are challenges affecting all major games, and we’re fully engaged in the industry-wide fight against unfair play. Our goal is clear: to be best-in-class in anti-cheat innovation and effectiveness. It’s an ongoing battle, but we’re in it for the long haul – and we’re not backing down.”
