- Call of Duty devs revealed that they busted Cronus' North American distributor last year with a legal notice in a secret "Black Ops" operation.
- The devs released real footage of the encounter on X, showcasing Team RICOCHET handing the distributor a cease-and-desist.
- The COD devs have already issued more than 70,000 new hardware bans and 5,000 account bans for using tools like Cronus Zen and XIM Matrix.
Call of Duty devs are hunting down hackers and cheaters ahead of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4’s October 23, 2026 launch, even taking a “Black Ops”-style trip to track down a major Cronus distributor last year.
According to the official Call of Duty account on X, the COD devs busted Cronus’ North American distributor to a hotel in Southeast Asia in 2025, and it’s as “Call of Duty” as it gets. But the weapon here is a cease-and-desist notice, not an assault rifle or a pocket knife.
The dev team has dropped the real footage in the latest Call of Duty X post, turning the Cronus distributor into an unexpected COD cutscene as the dramatic black-and-white video shows the team serving him a legal notice. This footage looks straight out of a Call of Duty “Black Ops” mission, except Team RICOCHET is hunting a Cronus distributor instead of terrorists.
Activision openly putting the Cronus distributor on blast suggests the company is taking its anti-cheat crackdown more seriously this time. In fact, the studio confirmed that it has already issued more than 70,000 hardware bans across the board, with 5,000 accounts banned for using tools like Cronus Zen and XIM Matrix.
The studio says that “We judge them [hackers] by what they do in a match, not by what they’re called or how they’re sold. And our enforcement doesn’t stop with the player using the device.” For those unaware, Cronus is a hardware adapter that lets Call of Duty players modify their controller inputs, use scripts, and gain unfair advantages in multiplayer.
Over the years, multiple hackers and cheaters have used Cronus Zen or CronusMax to cheat in Call of Duty games with wallhacks, aimbots, and all the knick-knacks and doodads. Some players even used them in the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 Beta, despite the RICOCHET Anti-Cheat being present.
But the Call of Duty devs are making sure that doesn’t happen in their upcoming game, busting Cronus’ North American distributor as a first step, but it certainly won’t be Team RICOCHET’s last.
