A concerning incident in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 has highlighted the ongoing struggle against hackers.  A player reported encountering an opponent using the Mangler skin, typically exclusive to the game's Zombies mode, within a standard multiplayer match.  This suggests hackers have developed new methods to alter their appearance, raising questions about the effectiveness of current anti-cheat measures.

While Black Ops 6 has generally been well-received, it, along with Warzone, has faced a significant rise in cheating activity in recent months.  This has led to a noticeable decline in the player base, particularly on platforms like Steam. Despite efforts to improve the Ricochet anti-cheat system, hackers continue to find ways to disrupt the game experience.

The incident involving the Mangler skin came to light through a Reddit post by user AkumaMatata.  The screenshots provided clearly depict a character model resembling the Mangler in a multiplayer lobby and in-game.  This is highly unusual, as the Mangler is not a standard multiplayer operator skin.  While some Zombie-themed skins exist, such as Brutus and Nacht Raider, neither resembles the appearance captured in the screenshots.

Other players in the Black Ops 6 community corroborated the suspicion of hacking, pointing out the significant size difference between the Mangler character model and standard operators.  The consensus is that this is almost certainly achieved through illicit hacking tools.

This isn't an isolated incident of advanced hacking in Call of Duty.  Earlier this year, reports surfaced of cheat tools allowing hackers to forcibly remove players from multiplayer matches, drawing widespread criticism and frustration from the community. Activision's response has included enabling console players to disable crossplay in Ranked Play to mitigate the impact of PC cheaters, but a comprehensive solution remains elusive.