Over the past several days, several Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Call of Duty Warzone users have been permanently banned, and then unbanned, from online multiplayer.
Earlier this week, game forums, Twitch chats, and Twitter were abuzz with gamers around the world who said Activision’s Infinity Ward permanently shuttered their Call of Duty accounts. While Infinity Ward didn’t provide details on the bans, the move came just days after Twitch streamers shared videos of players cheating in-game. One player even streamed their cheating on Twitch, prompting viewer backlash in the chat.
Oddly enough, some of the players who were banned earlier this week discovered Thursday that their accounts were restored. Again, Infinity Ward failed to say why. Those players said they hadn’t cheated in the first place and were confused as to why their accounts were turned off. It’s possible, they postulated on Reddit, that Infinity Ward mistakenly included non-cheaters in its clampdown.
Cheating has been a widespread problem in Call of Duty‘s online multiplayer since the game launched last year. Infinity Ward acknowledged the problem in a blog post in April, saying cheaters are “not welcomed in Call of Duty Warzone.” At the time, Infinity Ward said it had banned 70,000 people worldwide.
The company has banned more accounts since then, but it hasn’t said how many.
Because Infinity Ward hasn’t commented on its latest moves and didn’t respond to a Digital Trends request for comment, it’s unclear what spawned them.
While cheating needs to be addressed in Call of Duty‘s online multiplayer, Infinity Ward also said last month that it would crack down on racially insensitive and offensive Gamertags. The company added that it would expand its monitoring and make it easier for players to notify moderators if they are harassed.
It’s possible, though unconfirmed, that at least some of the accounts jettisoned this week may have run afoul of those revised rules.
Whatever the case, a “permaban” is a tough pill for players to swallow. Activision’s policy says players cannot dispute the bans, try to have them reversed, or even receive a refund on any previous purchases. All progress in battle passes and in-game challenges is also lost.
The Call of Duty franchise has held a special place in my heart ever since I played my first Black Ops game back in 2010. That game's campaign was something else, with twists and turns that culminated in a mind-blowing finale. We can all admit that compared to those older campaigns, the recent CODs have been lackluster at best, and a complete and utter disappointment at worst. The reboot of Modern Warfare did give me some hope, as the first two installments were actually quite good, but the third game left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t exactly expecting much from Modern Warfare 4.
After recently finishing the campaign, I can say that this installment is nothing like the recent releases and instead feels closer to the franchise’s roots. For the first time in a long while, the campaign comes across as well-crafted rather than rushed to hit a release date. It arrives three years after MW3, and you can see exactly where all that time went. It seems the studio finally made listening to player feedback a priority.
Epic Games has just announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, which is looking to see how much game development can be squeezed into a very short window. This is running from November 12 through November 15.
Participants can work alone or in teams of up to five people, build in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and bring along “as many AI agents as you want.” Epic explicitly encourages coding agents, AI-generated assets, audio tools, writing tools, and other AI systems. The official event page literally says "Vibe your way to $50k.”
It’s turning into a pretty good time to be a Monster Hunter fan who plays on a phone. Capcom has confirmed that Monster Hunter Outlanders will launch on Android and iOS on October 29, giving the series a new mobile-first game just as Monster Hunter Rise is also preparing to make the jump to smartphones through Netflix.
Outlanders is being developed by Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studio Group under license and supervision from Capcom. Unlike Rise, which appears to be the full console and PC game adapted for mobile, Outlanders is a free-to-play survival hunting game made specifically for phones.