Call of Duty player tries to prove he isn't cheating, accidentally proves he's cheating

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A tournament winner who previously earned thousands has been exposed by himself.

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(Image credit: Activision)

A Call of Duty: Vanguard player accidentally revealed himself to be cheating while competing in an unofficial paid tournament this week. After drawing some suspicion about the legitimacy of his play, CoD streamer Kenji apparently tried to prove he wasn't cheating by pointing a webcam at his monitor and streaming during a 2v2 Search and Destroy match.

Kenji's team won the 2v2 match, but his competitors ImSasukee and iLuhvly decided to dispute the results with the tournament hosting service Checkmate Gaming. While reviewing Kenji's stream, Checkmate noticed something strange. As shared in a clip on Twitter, at one point Kenji's monitor cam plainly shows that he's using wallhacks (a common cheat that lets you see enemies through walls). You can tell by the floating rectangles that appear on-screen—those are boxes drawn around enemy players that Kenji can track across the map.

The stream the clip originates from has since been deleted by Kenji (along with his entire channel), but you can watch his competitors discover his wallhacks in this archive of their stream. Following the investigation, Kenji has been banned from Checkmate Gaming, where he had apparently earned nearly $4,000 since late 2020 by playing CoD. If that wasn't enough, the collegiate league Kenji competed in, the College CoD League, issued Kenji a permanent ban and disqualified his other four teammates representing Grand Canyon University in the league. The league announced its decision this morning on its official Discord server.

"Kenji is permanently banned from the CCL," the statement reads. "Grand Canyon University is disqualified from the rest of the 2022 season and post-season. All GCU players listed below that competed alongside Kenji are banned until the beginning of the 2023 Season and may return to competition in the 2023 Season."

While this particular story of cheating has a funny ending, it doesn't reflect well on Call of Duty's competitive integrity. Despite the best efforts of Activision's dedicated Ricochet Anti-Cheat software, it's still possible for players to inject their games with cheats and even use them to win thousands of dollars. And as long as you don't record yourself using the cheats and put it on the internet, it's apparently not that hard to get away with.

Thanks, Dexerto

Morgan Park
Morgan Park
Staff Writer

Morgan has been writing for PC Gamer since 2018, first as a freelancer and currently as a staff writer. He has also appeared on Polygon, Kotaku, Fanbyte, and PCGamesN. Before freelancing, he spent most of high school and all of college writing at small gaming sites that didn't pay him. He's very happy to have a real job now. Morgan is a beat writer following the latest and greatest shooters and the communities that play them. He also writes general news, reviews, features, the occasional guide, and bad jokes in Slack. Twist his arm, and he'll even write about a boring strategy game. Please don't, though.