The moment Pre-Beta Call of Duty: Black Ops hit the streets, Twitch and other PC users started warring against the devious plans of making TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot forcibly installed on their systems. Without the security feature turned on, the game won’t boot, a sort of lockout for some PC gamers.
In this new twist in preventing cheating in the Call of Duty franchise, free throws are being made and the PC gaming community split right down the middle. In a recent statement, it was said that to participate in the Black Ops 7 beta or probably to just play the full game, TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot must be enabled on the Windows system. It is more like; it is not a request, but a direct injunction that the game will not launch whatsoever if the features are disabled.
What really are TPM2.0 and Secure Boot? A TPM (Trusted Platform Module) is basically a security chip that manages encryption keys, while Secure Boot only lets trusted software load during your PC startup. With similar requirements, these features were under a lot of debate during the Windows 11 rollout, but either gamers worked around it or stuck to Windows 10 a little longer. Now, Call of Duty wants to change the game.
Players’ reactions have been…well, varied. One simple and clear statement read: “So I preordered a game that will not launch on my PC,” the frustration expressed by many after they learned that their systems do not meet these new requirements. Another player went on complaining, “I have a good pc 2080 super i78700k its not new but its good enough yet my Mobo doesn’t support tpm 2.0 so i cant get win 11 or play? So dumb.”
Here lies the problem: some good rigs, especially those with slightly older motherboards, perhaps don’t support these features even if they could actually support running the game. So this is a situation where hardware that should technically run the game perfectly well is getting rejected because of security settings.
Another big question on everyone’s lips is: Does it stop cheaters? There’s a huge division among the community about this. Some say it needs to be done as, “Secureboot and kernel prevent the massmarket cheap and free cheats from being used which means the ones that can still bypass all that are paying hundreds if not thousands to get a setup.” From the commentator’s point of view, this means it will thereby not eliminate all cheating but will surely reduce the casual offenders quite a lot.
Others are not really convinced: “This is going to do nothing, bypassing secure boot and Force TPM is not an insane thing,” letting on that the determined cheaters will just find ways around it starting now anyway. They even mentioned that the biggest problem being legitimate players using certain peripherals or with specific hardware configurations being hurt most by having these turned on.
Now, the discussion has also moved on to higher-level cheats, with one noting, “I think some PC users use a dual PC setup, one pc for cheats and the other pc that has the game running that way cheats can’t be detected.” If this is true, then the TPM requirement becomes pretty much irrelevant as far as high-end cheating operations go.
Now, some technical issues have started cropping up reports of users that, even after correctly enabling TPM 2.0, the Call of Duty system check is falsely reporting that it isn’t enabled. “Even though TPM 2.0 Is enabled CoD still says it isn’t enabled,” stated one frustrated gamer, hinting that the detection system could be bugged in a way that will subsequently lock out legitimate users.
Paranoia is slowly building up with these being turned on. One user shared a horror story: “the last time I did it the power went out mid update bricking my PC…lost 1.5k at the time had to rebuild.” While that does seem like an over-the-top story, it really does provide a little insight into why some gamers just won’t go near their BIOS settings, even more so when they are unsure of the outcome.
Activision’s record on anti-cheat has not really inspired much confidence. “Activision’s track record isn’t good when it comes to their anti cheat, so why would we the pc community even do this?” This question pretty much set the tone for the court of popular opinion. “They just lost a good chunk of pre orders and players.”
The divide seems to be between those who see this as a necessary evolution in the fight against cheating and those who view it as an unnecessary barrier that punishes legitimate players more than cheaters. As one commenter summarized the cheating problem, regardless of technical solutions: “Even if you do reach the magical 0.1% of people cheating the average player is still gonna be cheesing.”
This requirement is going to be put in at some opportune time for the beta, so it will probably be present for the full game. That will be a very large change to the way PC games will be securing themselves, so in any way, almost giving an example to other AAA titles. Should Call of Duty pull this off, you can be sure that others will follow suit.
If you want to check your system, you will have to get into the BIOS/UEFI settings; the steps will be dependent on the motherboard manufacturer. They generally go like this: after your PC restart, go into BIOS (usually by hitting Delete or F2 upon startup), and then within the security settings look for both TPM and Secure Boot to enable them. But as reported in comments, it might not be so clear, while some do not support those options in the first place. This is a particular concern for users on platforms like PlayStation, where such settings are managed differently, or even for those on Xbox, which have their own security architectures.
The bigger picture, even though, is one of continued battle with cheat-makers. Every new round of added security gives the next way to approaching it to the cheat-makers in-between, again. It is unavoidable that it is important to reduce cheating, but then the question is will that any measure that could exclude legitimate players can be the right approach.
With time to release the beta coming very soon, all eyes will be on how this pans out. So, will things seriously get better for cheating? How much might that be the number of players that won’t play? Will Activision really get their act together and help those who abide by the requirements? One thing for sure, the Call of Duty community will bear witness to this big-time, and its effect on PC gaming security in the immediate years ahead, for better or worse.
