Call of Duty cheaters are being struck blind by anti-cheat software

Enlarge / Hey, where'd everybody go? (credit: Chaos / Activision)

Players caught cheating in Call of Duty can now be punished with a penalty that makes them unable to see their opponents, a new anti-cheat mitigation feature that Activision calls "cloaking."

Cheaters that are subject to a cloaking penalty will find that "characters, bullets, even sound from legitimate players will be undetectable," according to a post on the official Call of Duty development blog. Those cheaters will remain fully visible to non-cheaters, though; Activision quips that "they’ll be the players you see spinning in circles hollering, "Who is shooting me?!'"

The latest anti-cheat update will roll out first for Call of Duty: Vanguard, then applied to the free-to-play Warzone, Activision says, "to minimize and issues players may encounter." It also comes on top of another cheating mitigation measure, called Damage Shield, which was announced in February and "disables the cheater’s ability to inflict critical damage on other players."