Modern Warfare 3 will cut parachutes to make cheaters go "splat"

As we gear up for the full launch of Modern Warfare 3, the devs have published a few details about the latest revisions to the game's Ricochet anti-cheat protections. One of the new systems will randomly cut the parachutes of cheaters to, using the studio's own terminology, make them go "splat."

This system is simply called Splat, according to the latest dev blog. "With Splat, if a cheater is discovered, we may randomly, and for fun, disable their parachute, sending them careening into the ground after they deploy." The devs say that Splat can kill cheaters after deployment, too, since it can adjust player velocity, which "transforms a bunny hop into a 10,000-foot drop."

The devs say this will only happen to players verified to be cheating, and will continue to work alongside existing mitigation systems. All these systems intended to make the game miserable for cheaters, delaying a proper ban so that the Ricochet anti-cheat system can gather information on offending accounts and machines. The Splat system has the added benefit of a little public humiliation.

Today's blog also details how Ricochet is making use of machine learning to more efficiently track and take action against cheaters. Starting with the launch of Modern Warfare 3, Ricochet will be using a machine learning model to investigate replays for suspicious activities. "A single PC running the model can review up to 1,000 clips per day - a number that grows exponentially when multiple computers are tasked with operating this specific Replay Machine Learning Investigation model."

The Ricochet team says it's "dedicated to using all technologies, providing our team with more data and tools, developing new prevention and detection systems, and doing anything we can to make the lives of cheaters that make it into our games as annoying as possible. It's a continuous battle, but it’s one we’re committed to."

The campaign is out early, but as our Modern Warfare 3 review in progress notes, you probably shouldn't be picking this one up for the single-player action.