Who needs Task Manager?
Call of Duty has a new shortcut for mouse and keyboard users trying to activate aim assist: Alt + F4. According to a tweet posted to the official Call of Duty Updates Twitter account Tuesday, the game has buffed up its security systems to automatically kill your game—as in MW3.exe itself—if it catches you using a tool to turn on the game’s assist while using a mouse. The new measure works across Modern Warfare 2, 3, and Warzone.
“Our security detection systems now target players using tools to activate aim assist while using a mouse and keyboard,” reads the tweet, “The Call of Duty application will close if detected.” It gets worse if you keep trying it: “Repeated use of these tools may lead to further account action,” says COD Updates.
Aim assist is, of course, a tricky topic in multiplayer shooters. Time was, having a mouse in your hand was a straightforward advantage over anyone foolish enough to use a gamepad in FPSes of yore, but the implementation of tech to give controller-holders a helpful nudge with their aim has made that situation a lot hazier. It’s a constant balancing act: Too far and you’ve effectively handed gamepad users a dev-made aimbot, too little and anyone playing on their sofa is going to meet infinite frustrating ends at the hands of KBAM players.
The combination of the mouse’s natural suitability for clicking on people’s heads with the dread power of controller aim assist is, then, obviously too potent for devs to allow. But there are still plenty of hardware and software hacks out there to let nefarious players try it anyway. That’s why COD is stepping things up, and pledging to zero players where they stand if there’s a sniff of cheating.
Warzone players reckon the update is specifically about reWASD, which effectively dupes the game into thinking your keyboard is actually a gamepad. Fellow multiplayer FPS The Finals has also taken action against the tool this month, and for good reason. ReWASD users can, it seems, anticipate some hard and nasty crashes to desktop the next time they load the game up, which is probably for the best for the rest of us.
