Call of Duty publisher Activision is severely ratcheting up its years-long campaign against cheaters, publishing actual footage of a cheat maker being served a cease and desist order.

The game’s main line of defense against cheaters is its kernel level Ricochet anti-cheat system, which is installed at the kernel level of your operating system and loads with the game to detect cheats from a privileged position in your PC’s security system. That alone stirred some controversy when it was implemented back in 2021, but there’s no denying it works. Since then, Activision has caught hundreds of thousands of Call of Duty and Warzone cheaters, but the fight rages on as they adapt and circumvent the latest anti-cheat measures. Now, Activision is going after something closer to the root of the problem: the people actually making cheats.

“RICOCHET Anti-Cheat doesn’t end when your match does. Cheat makers operate around the world. So do we,” reads a tweet from the official Call of Duty Twitter account. “We’re taking the fight directly to cheat sellers.

“Last weekend during the Closed Beta, we went to Ohio to takedown Elocarry. That’s not an isolated case…”

In the above video, you see what appears to be an attorney or process server drive up to a purported cheat maker’s home, ring the doorbell, and hand a legal notice over to the accused. “What’s this?” the person asks. “Attorneys for Activision and, uh, it’s a cease and desist order for you.”

When the recipient asks for more information, the server tells them to contact the attorney involved and the conversation ends. Naturally, the accused’s visual identity is blurred out and their name redacted, but Activision confirms the video is “an excerpt from a real recording.” Unnamed but still shamed.

In follow-up tweets, Activision shows the receipts apparently backing up its claim that this isn’t the first or only person it’s taken legal action against due to cheating in Call of Duty, with several more images of alleged cheat makers being served legal notices.

“In our ongoing fight against cheat developers and sellers, we’ve disrupted more than 375 cheat reseller operations, served more than 80 cease-and-desist demands and shut down more than 30 vendors,” the publisher says. “And there’s more to come, including litigation when necessary. We’re prepared to take cheat developers and sellers to court to protect fair play.

“BUILD CHEATS. SELL CHEATS. WE WILL FIND YOU.”

Activision adds that its latest anti-cheat measures are targeted at “the people and businesses behind cheating products” so that it can “disrupt the ecosystem that profits from them.” Included is a screenshot of what appears to be a cheat seller informing its customers of a pause in operations.

“It’s another way we’re working to make cheating harder – not just for the people using cheats, but for the people building and selling them,” Activision says.

Activision is obviously no darling, but this is an easy win for their PR team. If the accused cheaters and cheat sellers are really guilty, they’re actively getting in the way of thousands of people simply wanting to enjoy the games they bought with their hard-earned money. Cheating will always be a thing, and Activision itself seems to acknowledge that, but anything that makes it harder and more legally risky to do is a good thing in my book.

Now onto more important matters: After Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 beta, devs promise to fix Captain Price’s hair as his unexpected balding goes viral