Call of Duty cheaters arrive day 1 to the early access Black Ops 7 beta, much to the FPS community's dismay: "This can't be happening… ALREADY"

It's official – Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is almost upon us, with the competitive shooter's beta period having just commenced yesterday for players with early access… and unsurprisingly, cheaters are apparently already running rampant in-game, too.

The Black Ops 7 beta is now open to fans who have pre-ordered the FPS, with the full open beta beginning this Sunday. Players will have access to the latest Call of Duty for a few days until the beta period wraps up next week – but so far, it hasn't all exactly been smooth sailing for the game's eager community. Even with security features like both Black Ops 7 Secure Boot and Ricochet Anti-Cheat set to be fully integrated at launch, as it stands, cheaters appear to be everywhere.

Players have taken to online forums to highlight the already apparent issue with cheaters in Black Ops 7, with well-known streamers like Stodeh chiming in as well. "This can't be happening in Black Ops 7 ALREADY," exclaims the content creator in a new post, attaching a clip of the supposed cheater in action. "Bro, is this guy cheating in hour three of beta lmao," he asks via the in-game chat. Comments see developers confirming that the cheater was "banned."

Stodeh isn't the only player to seemingly encounter cheaters in the new Black Ops game, however. "First game on beta, and someone is already cheating," another fan writes in a separate thread. They include a video of the apparent unfair kills, too, with fellow fans tagging devs in replies. Elsewhere, a viral clip shows what looks to be wall hacks – cheats that make aim assist look like child's play – being abused by a player tearing through opponents left, right, and center.

"The real reason CoD is declining," responds one fan. Another jokes that the Ricochet Anti-Cheat software is "on vacation." Overall, it's clear that the community isn't thrilled to see cheating already becoming a problem literally hours into the Black Ops 7 beta period.

It's worth noting that a blog post previously confirmed that during the open beta, Ricochet is only set to have "some of its systems online as we test how they perform under live conditions." It was stated that "the full force of our protections will be reserved for launch, when all systems come online together," so hopefully we should see some improvements then.

Note: This article has been altered since its original publication to reflect that only "some" of Ricochet's anti-cheat systems are online during Black Ops 7's beta.

Once you've gathered all the Black Ops 7 rewards while playing the beta yourself, check out our rundown of the other most exciting new games coming this year and beyond.