Call of Duty: Warzone cheaters are using night vision goggles to show they're not worried about being banned
The goggles do nothing!
We're used to seeing Call of Duty: Warzone players make use of aimbots and wallhacks to win. Now, they're also using night vision goggles for no real reason other than to show off.
Night vision goggles is an item that isn't officially in Warzone. It is in Infinity Ward's 2019 shooter Modern Warfare - the game upon which Warzone is built. You may remember night vision goggles from the superb Clean House campaign mission, but they're also used during nighttime multiplayer maps.
This week, Warzone streamer Stephen "Yungstaz" Galloway uploaded a gameplay clip to Twitter that showed one cheater auto ping everyone in the lobby - and even equip night vision goggles.
In another remarkable clip, Yungstaz talks with this cheater after the game. The cheater said they were cheating in this fashion with this account for five months. The cheater is also able to change their account name repeatedly - at one point to "LITERALLY AIM ASSIST M8".
This isn't a one-off, either. Redditor PerfectEfficiency8 this week uploaded a gameplay clip showing another cheater using night vision goggles, as well as an aimbot and a wallhack.
I've NEVER been in a game with a hacker like this. He died at super when his aim bot kept locking onto zombies. But it quit the entire lobby out when he died.. games a joke watch till the end he even has night vision goggles from r/CODWarzone
What's troubling is this cheater is level 686, which suggests the player has yet to suffer a permanent ban - or has obtained a high level account from some illicit means.
This isn't the first time we've seen night vision goggles in Warzone. The item was used by cheaters to trigger the troublesome infinite stim glitch. Clearly, hacks are making it available somehow.
Using night vision goggles in Warzone seems pointless. Verdansk is a daytime map, so it doesn't particularly help with visibility (although it might help spotting those awful Roze skins!). And of course using night vision goggles is a big giveaway that you're cheating. At this point, it seems that using night vision goggles is a sort of Warzone cheater flex - a way of declaring to the lobby that you don't care if you're reported, and you certainly don't care about the consequences.
Activision this week said it had permanently banned close to half a million Warzone accounts since the battle royale launched last year, but it faces an uphill struggle against cheat makers.
Activision also confirmed it does issue hardware bans to "repeat or serial" Call of Duty: Warzone cheaters. "This is an important part of our effort to combat repeat offenders," Activision said.
However, as many have pointed out, there are multiple options for players to get around hardware bans to continue to play Warzone.
Activision is also trying to stamp out the commercial market of cheat providers and resellers. This includes suspicious accounts, which are farmed and often sold to repeat offenders, Activision said. "We recently banned 45,000 fraudulent, black market accounts used by repeat offenders."
Warzone has a reputation for being a game afflicted by cheating - particularly on PC. It's a significant enough issue that some console players disable crossplay to avoid PC cheaters.