A new update from COD's Ricochet anti-cheat team (opens in new tab) attempts to placate players concerned about Modern Warfare 2's SMS verification requirements.In a post from TeamRicochet, the PC version of Modern Warfare 2 players will need a "text-enabled cell phone number" to authenticate their account and play the game.

But even for us PC players, according to Team Ricochet, this requirement does not affect those who have already authenticated with Call of Duty: Warzone: MW2 (and Warzone 2.0) SMS authentication system on Battle.net is the same one that has existed in Call of Duty: Warzone for the past two years, so legacy players will not need to re-authenticate to access it. Unless, however, they wish to play MW2 on Steam (open in new tab), in which case they will need a cell phone number linked to their Steam account before they can play.

The update promises that the phone number will only be used for security reasons and that the game "will not use SMS verification data for marketing purposes."

This measure is being implemented to combat the "rogue account market" and cheaters. For some time, cheaters were able to play Warzone without identification if they accessed it from 2019's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, which led to the implementation of an SMS verification system in MW1 this August. The team hopes to prevent that from happening again.

This entire post feels like an attempt to avoid the uproar that has been engulfing "Overwatch 2" this month over its SMS security system. Overwatch 2 initially planned to force both new and old players to identify themselves with their cell phone numbers, but after a flood of complaints, the policy was eventually scrapped for legacy players (opens in new tab). The game also drew criticism for requiring phone numbers from both console and PC players, but MW2 does no such thing.

However, COD has not gotten rid of everything people didn't like about Overwatch 2's SMS security system. Prepaid phones are still unavailable (open in new tab), which upset many "Overwatch" fans earlier this month.

When Modern Warfare 2 releases on Steam (opens in new tab) and Battle.net (opens in new tab) on October 28 (pre-orders will have access to the campaign on October 20), we'll see how well COD pulls it off! Let's see how well COD pulls it off. So far, it looks pretty good. The trailer is full of fun COD nonsense (opens in new tab), and the PC features look really expandable (opens in new tab). Just might have to take out my phone before I can enjoy them.