You can tell if your account has been shadow banned if you notice that your lobbies have much higher ping than usual and it takes longer to connect to the lobby.
How to find out if you’ve been shadow banned in Call of Duty Warzone?
When shadow banned in Warzone, the first tell-tale sign is that when searching for a match your ping will go all the way up to 200ms, and it’ll take much longer to actually find a match.
When you get in a game, it’ll be laggy and might have more hackers than a usual lobby. If you believe you’ve been shadow banned, you can head to the Ban Appeal section of Activision Support. Here, it’ll tell you if your account is “Under Review.”
- Head to the Appeal A Ban page on Activision Support
- Log in with your Activision account
- Press ‘Agree and Continue’
- This screen will now tell you if there’s No Ban Detected, your Account is Under Review, or Permanently Banned
How do you get Shadow Banned in Warzone?
Currently the main ways of getting a Warzone shadow ban appear to be:
- Report spamming – the current report system seems to shadow ban players if they’re reported repeatedly in a short space of time.
- Getting 10 kills – incredibly, numerous streamers and high level players have reported getting a shadow ban the second they make a tenth kill.
- Actual cheating – This one should be obvious.
What is Shadow Banned in Warzone?
When a player suspected of hacking gets shadow banned in Warzone, they’re no longer able to play in normal lobbies with the rest of the game’s community while Activision reviews their account. Instead, they get placed into special lobbies full of other suspected cheaters.
While many actual cheaters do get shadow banned, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the player is cheating. If a player gets reported a ton of times in a short period of time, whether for performing particularly well, exploiting a camo glitch, or for any other reason, their account can come under review and they’re shadow banned.
Shadow bans typically last a week or two, and once it’s over, the account will either become un-shadow banned or permanently banned depending on the result of Activision’s decision.
Unfortunately, because Warzone is free-to-play, once cheaters figure out what has happened to them, a lot of them just make new accounts. Still, it’s a useful tool to take them out of the regular player base, and fun to imagine a lobby of hackers all stuck together too.
Can a legitimate player get shadow banned in Warzone?
Yes, a regular, non-cheating player can get shadow banned in Warzone. Several streamers have been shadow banned and cleared, and it happens to regular players all of the time too.
Of course, if you really are hacking and get caught by RICOCHET then don’t expect the shadow ban to lift. Instead, your account will become permanently banned once reviewed.
Can a Cronus Zen get me Shadow Banned?
Maybe. Call of Duty have began issuing warnings for Unsupported External Hardware controller setup (Cronus Zen, Strike Pack) in MWII, MWIII and Warzone.
Cronus Zen isn’t considered “cheating” like Engine Owning that modifies game files and data. Sure, you get less antirecoil and slighly more aim assist but that’s it.
You likely got a high kill game in a low K/D lobby or someone you killed spectated you and reported you for cheating.
If you wasn’t using cheats with your Cronus Zen your shadow ban will be lifted usually within 7-14 days. I personally have been Shadow Banned twice (12th kill and 16th kill on Rebirth) and that was only because it was a 0.5x K/D lobby and the bots thought I was too good and must be cheating, lol!
