Activision Explains Use of Shadow Bans in Call of Duty

Players do not always face an immediate ban.

Activision chooses not to permanently ban players suspected of cheating in Call of Duty every time, instead placing them into separate matchmaking pools with limited matchmaking. Call of Duty Senior Director of Security David Andrews discussed the reasons behind this approach.

According to him, the Ricochet system can send a suspicious account into limited matchmaking, a mode frequently referred to as a “shadow ban.” In these cases, the player is effectively isolated from the main audience while developers perform additional checks and gather necessary information.

He stated that this allows Activision to evaluate user behavior as a whole and determine whether the rules were genuinely violated.

At the same time, temporary isolation prevents irreversible consequences in situations where the system makes a mistake. If further investigation shows that the suspicions were false, the account can be returned to the regular player pool. Consequently, a shadow ban acts as an intermediate measure between detecting suspicious activity and issuing a final penalty.

Andrews also noted that Activision possesses a complete suite of tools to combat cheaters. Aside from limited matchmaking, the company can issue ranked mode bans, block remote play, apply temporary or permanent account bans, and execute hardware bans.