Most gamers frown upon cheating in any kind of PvP game, even during casual matches. However, matters get particularly tense in the community when someone rising in ranked play is revealed to be using cheats or hacks of some kind.
That is unfortunately what the Call of Duty: Vanguard community is experiencing right now. While streaming their gameplay, the player sitting at the second spot on the ranked leaderboard was revealed to be using wallhack cheats.
Call of Duty: Vanguard streamer pplehx found himself in hot water while streaming on April 11. After being killed, pplehx's stream can be seen stuttering momentarily. After the frame rate seemed to recover, other players' positions can be seen through the walls. Pplehx mentioned at the time that his game was lagging, but eagle-eyed fans were quick to notice the tell-tale signs of hacks.
Rather than denying the accusations, pplehx has apologized for his actions and attempted to explain them. In replies to commenters and in a separate tweet, pplehx claims that he was indeed using Call of Duty: Vanguard cheats, and even went so far as to admit where he got them from and showed proof that he paid for them. The reasoning for him revealing all of this information, though, is to help support a claim explaining why he was using cheats in the first place.
Supposedly, pplehx purchased access to the cheats in order to help unlock a diamond camo in the game. Pplehx claims that prior to that, they hadn't used any cheats or hacks at all, and had risen through the ranks to the runner-up spot all on their own. Some of his fans responding were supportive, but many others were suspicious of the claims, arguing that someone who could reach that rank naturally wouldn't need cheats to unlock a diamond camo.
For the moment, no official action has been taken against pplehx. While some have called for a suspension or ban, the reveal ultimately points to the continuing problem of cheating in general in Call of Duty: Vanguard. If this were a rare instance of cheats, players might be more forgiving of the situation. However, despite the Ricochet Anti-Cheat system, many players report encountering cheaters regularly and they're understandably frustrated by it.
At this time, the future of Call of Duty in 2023 is a little unclear, with the series potentially not producing a new mainline title for the year. With any luck, the developers will find a way to better detect and ban cheaters in whatever comes next. Otherwise, this pattern will simply continue to repeat through each year's franchise release.
Call of Duty: Vanguard is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.