Ricochet Could Be The Key to Reviving One of Call of Duty’s Best Features

The multiplayer experiences of Call of Duty have always been a massively successful element of the longstanding franchise, with its annual releases always aiming to shake up this formula in one way or another. While a lot of interesting new mechanics and modes are added to the IP’s multiplayer all the time, there are a lot of older defining features that have sadly been phased out over the years.

One of the biggest losses that Call of Duty has faced in more recent multiplayer iterations is the absence of emblem customization. The emblem editor systems of past CoDs gave an untold amount of freedom to players to create hilarious or intensely detailed artworks, yet these older systems were also abused to spread offensive and hateful imagery. Automated moderation and detection services have developed significantly since Call of Duty last featured custom emblems, and the franchise’s Ricochet system could be the key to re-introducing custom emblems while catching and stopping abuse of the system.

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Ricochet Could Bring Back One of Call of Duty’s Best Features

Treyarch first introduced the concept of an emblem editor mechanic in 2010’s Black Ops, revolutionizing how players could customize and add flair to their multiplayer playercards. The emblem editor gave players complete creative control over what artwork they could create, using a huge range of shapes, logos, and lettering, with the final product then being immortalized as an emblem which could even be showcased on a player’s in-game weapon.

These emblems could be created using close to 500 different assets, with players quickly trying to one-up each other in creating the most detailed and eye-catching emblems. The emblem editor was such a popular concept that it would go on to become a staple of Call of Duty for some time, appearing in the following titles over the years:

Black Ops
Black Ops 2
Advanced Warfare
Black Ops 3
Infinite Warfare

Sadly, the creative freedom of the emblem editor also gave way to intense amounts of offensive and hateful imagery created by players, with Call of Duty completely abandoning the feature since 2016 to return to the pre-designed emblem system of earlier titles like Modern Warfare. While it always seemed inevitable that the concept of custom emblems would be short-lived, the franchise may finally be in a position where its automatic moderation and detection systems could see custom emblems return with a much lower risk of being abused.

Call of Duty’s Emblem Editor Could Be Stronger Than Ever in a Future Title

Call of Duty announced its Ricochet anti-cheat system in 2021, and has been developing and fine-tuning the system ever since. Ricochet was made all the more important thanks to the launch of the Warzone series and the influx of cheaters that it brought about, with Ricochet being used extensively to keep gameplay as fair as possible across all of Call of Duty‘s multiplayer experiences.

CoD has been increasingly automating Ricochet and moderation in general, recently introducing an automatic in-game voice chat monitor that can flag up hateful language. This automation could be extended to any future iterations of the emblem editor, perhaps being tweaked to a stage where it can automatically detect hateful or problematic imagery that players might create. It is a shame that such a creative element of Call of Duty‘s past was ruined by abuse. Hopefully, a more robust Ricochet system leads to emblem editing returning better than ever in the near future.

Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (2023)

Released in November of 2023, Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (2023) continues Captain Price’s story from the 2019 and 2022 games.

Released: November 10, 2023
Genre(s): First-Person Shooter
ESRB: M For Mature 17+ Due To Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language, Use of Drugs
How Long To Beat: 5 Hours
Metascore: 60
Platforms That Support Crossplay: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One & Xbox Series X|S
Split Screen Orientation: Horizontal Only
PS Plus Availability: N/A
Local Co-Op Support: 1-2 Players