A Call of Duty: Warzone companion app has been forced to change how the app fundamentally works in response to the game's community using it to cheat the matchmaking system.
Earlier today, Eurogamer first revealed that the makers of Warzone Companion were changing the app's methods. The app displays the kill - death ratio of every player in your Call of Duty: Warzone lobby, meaning players were using the app to back out of a match if the players they were put up against were deemed too competitive and, instead, would try to find a match with players sporting a weaker K/D ratio.
The owner of Warzone Companion, Dmitry Shymko, tells Eurogamer that the app is changing when it displays player K/D ratios in response to this. "Information about lobby players will be shown only after the warm-up," Shymko says, and "the average lobby K/D value will be displayed only at the end of the match." These changes have already been implemented in Warzone Companion, the owner says.
Cheating the skill-based matchmaking system of Warzone obviously wasn't intended as a feature of Warzone Companion. As Eurogamer notes however, these changes to the app mean players won't be able to flag any cheaters before a match kicks off, something that Shymko is seeking player feedback on.
Abusing the system obviously isn't anything new to Infinity Ward's battle royale game. Back near the end of last year, an invisibility glitch was wreaking havoc for players on the ground, while helicopters were temporarily disabled to fix a different invisibility glitch.
