If you cheated in the past one-to-two years in Call of Duty, it doesn’t mean you will start this year’s instalment with a clean slate.

Many users complained after cheating in Call of Duty: Warzone (resulting in either an account or an outright hardware ban) that they couldn’t play in Call of Duty: Vanguard. Eurogamer reports that many images popped up on forums and social media regarding their unexpected error message.

If someone tried to play the beta of Sledgehammer’s game after cheating, they got a connection failed message that said, “You have been permanently banned from playing on the Call of Duty Vanguard servers.” CharlieIntel, a reliable Call of Duty portal, confirmed the situation on Twitter: “If you are currently banned in Call of Duty: Warzone – including hardware or account banned – you are banned from playing Call of Duty: Vanguard. For those in the cheats Discords/forums etc., asking why, I think it’s pretty obvious why. But thought I’d let you know.”

If you got a hardware ban, you could no longer use that PlayStation 5, for example, to play Call of Duty, but if you have other hardware, you can somewhat dodge this trick. Activision Blizzard didn’t comment about the situation yet, but the banned players are angry now (although they shouldn’t have cheated in the first place).

“I am shadowbanned on [Call of Duty:] Vanguard because I am permanent[ly] banned on [Call of Duty:] Modern Warfare and [Call of Duty:] Warzone. And I might get [a] permanent ban on it just like a guy that I know, so I just spent 60 Euros to get shadowbanned on a new game, at least tell people that that’s the case, such bullshit!!”, a Twitter user said. While we disagree with cheating, the anger is somewhat justified: WHEN would have the publisher said anything about this situation? How much money did they grab from banned players!?

Call of Duty: Vanguard will launch on November 5 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, PC (Battle.net), PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.

Source: PSL