Secure Boot seems to be becoming standard practice for multiplayer games. Everyone is hyped for the Battlefield 6 open beta right now, and the news that Secure Boot is required on Windows has drawn some criticism from some, but it’s not the first time this measure has been taken against hackers. Valorant has had the same requirement for years. And now, Activision has announced the next COD game, Black Ops 7, will require the setting to be on.

Turning on Secure Boot is luckily not too difficult, and the chances are it’s already turned on for you if you’ve never heard of it before. Generally speaking, the only people who turn it off are developers or those who want to make dual-booting operating systems easier for themselves.

Secure Boot and TPM 2.0 rollout for Black Ops 6 Season 5

The introduction of Secure Boot (and TPM 2.0) for Activision’s Ricochet anti-cheat begins with a phased rollout of the two PC security features. TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot go hand-in-hand; the former generally requires you to have an Intel 8th gen CPU or AMD Ryzen 2000 series CPU or newer, but compatibility can be achieved with a firmware update.

When Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 releases later this year, TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot will be required to play on PC. These hardware-level protections are a key part of our anti-cheat efforts, and we’re asking all players to get compliant now.

Source: Call of Duty

Secure Boot essentially means that only trusted software can be loaded when you boot Windows. In other words, requiring this feature will make it harder for cheaters to load unregistered software at a deep level. While this change may generally be welcomed by the gaming community – who are always complaining about hackers – it does lock out some users who rely on disabling Secure Boot but are otherwise legitimate players. At least, they’ll have to re-enable it every time they want to play.

While the rollout is phased for the time being, Activision has confirmed that Black Ops 7 will launch with this requirement right out of the gate. The exact release date for the next installment of COD is yet to be announced, but if we base it on BO6, we could be looking sometime in October or November.

About the Author

Jack Goodall

At PC Guide, Jack is mostly responsible for reporting on hardware deals. He also specializes in monitors, TVs, and headsets and can be found putting his findings together in a review or best-of guide.