Warzone 2 Ranked Play will have a minimum level to prevent cheaters ruining it
ActivisionWarzone 2 Ranked Play will feature a level restriction requiring players who want to play the competitive mode to be at least Level 45, implemented in an attempt to prevent cheaters.
As with any competitive shooter, Warzone 2 has experienced its fair share of cheating. Since it’s a free-to-play game players can create an account, cheat until they get banned, and repeat.
To slow down the cheating, Call of Duty introduced Ricochet in December 2021, a kernel-level anti-cheat that monitors and reports any open applications.
However, Ricochet still needs time to analyze play and identify cheaters and the Warzone 2 devs have come up with a way to give it that time.
Warzone 2 Ranked Play requires players to reach Level 45
As confirmed in an official dev blog, players will be required to reach Level 45 before playing Warzone 2 Ranked Play.
In a developer call held on May 4, Raven Software confirmed this restriction is being implemented to prevent cheating, as revealed by ModernWarzone on Twitter.
The tweet reads: “In an effort to combat cheaters and promote competitive integrity Call of Duty Warzone’s Ranked Play mode will NOT allow anyone under level 45 to enter. It takes roughly 20 hours for someone to get a new account from level 1 to level 45. The hope is RICOCHET bans them by then.”
A level restriction already exists for Modern Warfare 2’s Ranked Play game mode. In the core multiplayer version of Ranked Play players are required to first reach Level 16. Unlike Warzone 2, MW2 is a AAA premium title that retails at $70 USD.
Call of Duty is by no means the only competitive shooter to restrict access to its competitive modes. Valorant requires players to reach Level 20, in CS:GO accounts need to be Private Rank 2, and Overwatch 2 asks players to win 50 Quick Play matches beforehand. Apex Legends is increasing its level requirement for Ranked to 50 in the new season too.
