Twitch streamer Aydan “shadow-banned” in Warzone

One of Warzone’s most notable Twitch streamers, Aydan ‘Aydan’ Conrad, claims he has been shadow-banned in-game, posting a message of bemusement on social media.

As Activision continues to wrangle with the cheating and hacking issues persistent in Warzone, streamers have been having a tricky time playing the game – as has everyone else.

The game’s developers did a ban wave in early February, bragging that 60,000 cheaters had been taken off the servers. However, some of their moderation may be affecting innocent players too.

What is a shadow-ban in Warzone?

A shadow-ban in Warzone is typically when a player’s account is placed on a kind of ‘naughty list’ – where they are removed from the wider pool of players in matchmaking, and placed into matches filled with more cheaters and hackers.

A number of YouTubers have reported this happening to them, blaming frequent in-game reports from opposing players as the cause. Another downside is that queue times are incredibly long, as the available matchmaking pool is reduced so much.

It’s unclear if this is exactly what has happened to Aydan too, as he’s simply said “I got shadow-banned on Warzone… wtf?”

Other content creators who have had similar problems have been stuck with the shadow-ban for months, and are often forced to start a new account in order to play and create content.

Although unconfirmed, it is believed that mass-reporting by players can lead to a shadow-ban, as the game registers your account as potentially being untrustworthy, and a potential cheater.

• Read More: Warzone devs investigating broken hitmarkers

Aydan will no doubt be in contact with the developer’s support team to get the issue resolved as quickly as possible.

We’ve seen other big names in Warzone quit the game entirely over the hacking issues, namely Vikkstar, and compounding these issues with shadow-bans could be another big mess.

We’ll keep you updated on the status of Aydan’s shadow-ban situation.