News
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 Launching with Thousands of Pre-Existing Hardware Bans
Activision says over 70,000 hardware bans will carry into Modern Warfare 4 at its October 23 launch, with TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot required on PC.
In this article
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 will launch on October 23, 2026, with more than 70,000 hardware bans already in place. Activision’s Team RICOCHET anti-cheat team confirmed on September 25 that these bans will carry directly over to the new game, so players caught in recent enforcement waves will not be able to simply create a new account on the same machine.
What a hardware ban means
A standard ban blocks a specific account. A hardware ban targets the device itself, so any new account created on that PC or console is also blocked. Because cheaters often buy fresh accounts after being banned, hardware bans are one of the more effective tools against repeat offenders. Carrying them over to Modern Warfare 4 means players banned in earlier Call of Duty titles start the new game already locked out.
Cracking down on input manipulation
Team RICOCHET is also targeting third-party hardware that modifies controller input. Devices such as the Cronus Zen and XIM Matrix are now clearly in scope. Some of these tools are marketed as accessibility aids, but Activision says it judges devices by how they function in a match rather than how they are branded. Roughly 5,000 bans have already been issued specifically for these input-altering devices, a sign of a much stricter stance on tools that disguise mouse-and-keyboard input as a controller or add automated recoil control.
PC players need TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot
On PC, Modern Warfare 4 requires both TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot for online play. Activision says this provides a “trusted security foundation” for its anti-cheat system. TPM is a security chip or firmware feature built into most modern PCs, and Secure Boot ensures only trusted software loads when the computer starts. Both are usually available in the PC’s BIOS or UEFI settings but are not always switched on by default.
Some players are already seeing “Secure Attestation” errors. Team RICOCHET says AMD systems with 3.x.0.x firmware configurations and certain Lenovo machines are currently the most common causes. Lenovo owners who cannot find a public BIOS update are advised to contact the manufacturer directly. Players who still cannot pass the check can use a TPM report form so Activision’s engineers can identify remaining compatibility issues before launch.
Release date and platforms
Modern Warfare 4 is developed by Infinity Ward and published by Activision. It launches on October 23, 2026, on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PC and Nintendo Switch 2. Its campaign centers on a conflict on the Korean Peninsula.
Why it matters
For legitimate players, carried-over hardware bans and stricter rules on input devices should mean fewer known cheaters at launch, which is when many players decide whether a new Call of Duty is worth sticking with. Activision estimates the cheating economy at $8.5 billion a year, so it is unlikely to disappear, but these measures raise the cost for repeat offenders.
PC players, including many in the GCC who play on custom-built machines, should check now that TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot are enabled and that their BIOS is up to date, rather than discovering the problem on launch day.
