High-profile Call of Duty: Warzone players quit over cheating and hacking

Several high-profile Call of Duty: Warzone players have apparently quit the game due to ongoing hacking issues.

In the video below, YouTube star Vikkstar explains his decision to quit playing Call of Duty: Warzone (thanks, Eurogamer). The star player claims he ran into a player livestreaming their hacking in Call of Duty: Warzone to a Facebook Gaming audience, adding that "Activision isn't addressing how many hackers there are in the game."

Vikkstar goes on to add that "the playerbase of the game is now so saturated with hackers, you tend to find them in every single lobby." As of right now, Vikkstar is quitting Warzone for the foreseeable future, and he's hardly alone in this endeavour.

Late last month in January, FaZe's Nickmercs stated that Warzone tournaments just "aren't possible anymore" with the game in the current state it is due to hackers and cheaters. Just a few days after this, prolific YouTuber Drift0r posted a video lambasting developer Raven Software for Warzone's lack of anti-cheat software.

Call of Duty: Warzone has always faced its fair share of cheaters, culminating in a ban of around 200,000 players last year in October 2020. Problems have persisted however, with players utilising in-game hacks and exploits such as the infamous Stim glitch to hide out in the deadly gas with infinite health Stims, until they inevitably win the game.

Elsewhere, some players were exploiting a companion app for Warzone to reveal the kill to death ratio of players they were pitted against in lobbies before the game even began, backing out if they were going up against some challenging foes. The app's developers changed the tool's functions to disable this exploit, but it was still yet another way for players to cheat in the battle royale game.

Even those who aren't actively cheating are trying to find advantages over other players, with some purposefully using a dark-colored character outfit to blend in with specific areas of the Warzone map, effectively hiding themselves from enemy players. Warzone's community, as you might have imagined, weren't too enthused with this exploit, and were railing against the specific Operator outfit for weeks on end, posting clips to the game's subreddit of them vengefully killing anyone using said outfit.

This isn't even touching on the specific hacking that players like Vikkstar are highlighting, though. The YouTuber is specifically talking about players using hacks like aimbots, where a computer program targets players for you, giving you a massive advantage over foes. It's hard to really see how publisher Activision or developer Raven Software are going to crack down on these hacks and exploits, or if they even will in the near future.

For our pick of the best weapons you can find in the battle royale game, you can check out our extensive Warzone best guns guide for more.