Call Of Duty: Black Ops Cold War console players were forced to turn off the cross-platform play functionality this weekend to avoid PC hackers. To be clear, the shooter isn't actually out until November 13th - this was just a beta.
Treyarch's upcoming FPS went into beta across PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC last week, following a PS4-exclusive test earlier in the month. Since crossplay between generations and platforms is supposed to be one of the game's big features, it was enabled for the most recent beta. Unfortunately, this also brought with it a wave of hackers who made use of cheat software to ruin the game for everybody else.
They did this, despite the fact that progress in the beta doesn't even carry over into the full release. These cheaters weren't even cheating to try and get ahead - they were just cheating to cheat. What a bunch of incredible losers.
The MOST blatant and ridiculous aim hack I've EVER seen in a video game :joy: from r/blackopscoldwar
It wasn't long before players realised what was going on. Redditor madzuk posted a clip of a player clearly using an aimbot over on the Black Ops Cold War sub, which you can see above.
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Not long after that, Reddit, Twitter, and YouTube filled up with examples of cheaters, and players on console made the decision to switch off crossplay so that they didn't have to deal with PC users. It's not that all PC users are hackers, of course, but it's where cheating is the most prevalent by far.
"Turning off cross play," redditor RoKeOps wrote. "I'd rather wait long for a lobby than deal with those hacker assclowns who couldn't cut in a real match without hacking."
"The first thing I did yesterday was turn cross-play off," Illini_Jack added. "That's why I disabled crossplay as soon as I got on," akpatel_07 agreed.
What's particularly incredible about this entire thing is that we already went through the exact same situation with Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare and Call Of Duty: Warzone. Back in April it emerged that cheating had gotten so bad in the current Call Of Duty games that console players were finding it easier to simply turn off crossplay and eliminate the chance of bumping into PC-based hackers.
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The fact that this is happening again - and in the beta for the new game, no less - is troubling, to say the least. Activision and Infinity Ward have already gone to tremendous lengths to try and weed out cheaters in Modern Warfare and Warzone, although it often seems like two steps forward and one step back.
With just weeks to go until Black Ops Cold War launches proper, lets hope something can be done to get hackers under control... or maybe we could just get that "console only" crossplay option to keep the fans happy?
Featured Image Credit: ActivisionTopics: Call Of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, PC, Treyarch, Activision