Call of Duty announced server culling on October 2, 2026. It's a new part of Ricochet that stops the server sending you an enemy's position when you shouldn't be able to see them. It comes with Modern Warfare 4 on October 23, on every launch map, DMZ and Combat Outpost. New Multiplayer, DMZ and Warzone maps get it from Season 1.
It isn't out yet. Everything below about how well it'll work is our opinion, based on how the same idea has gone in other games. We'll update this post once it's live.
Their video on it, about a minute long:
How ESP works today
ESP doesn't find enemies on its own. It reads what the game already has. To keep things smooth, the server sends your PC info about enemies before you can see them, like where they are and how much health they have. ESP reads that and draws it on your screen. Aimbots use the same info.
What server culling changes
With server culling, the server only sends you an enemy when you can see them, or when you're about to. If someone is behind a wall on the other side of the map, your PC never gets their position. There's nothing in memory, so there's nothing to draw.
This is about what the game sends, not how you read it. So it hits every ESP the same way, DMA or not. A DMA card reads your main PC's memory, and if the enemy was never sent, they aren't in there.
The idea isn't new. Servers in the CS 1.6 days ran plugins that did this, and VALORANT has had its own version since it came out.
Why most games went easy on it
A strict version, where you only get the enemies you can actually see, sounds great on paper. Most games backed off it because of lag.
The server has to work out what you can see before it tells your PC. When the connection isn't perfect, that call comes late. A lot of things cause it:
- Ping spikes and jitter
- Packet loss
- The server itself lagging
- Lobbies that mix regions, which happens a lot late at night and at high ranks
- VPNs
When that happens, an enemy can get your info before you get theirs. They peek, they see you, and for a moment you don't see them. That hurts normal players way more than cheaters. Call of Duty already gets a lot of complaints about its netcode and latency, so a strict version would really hurt the people playing legit.
The version we think is more likely
Most games that do this send every enemy within a set distance of you, whether you can see them or not. That's something like 100 m in a lot of games, and in Call of Duty it might be more like 300 m. Anyone outside that circle isn't sent.
That kills full-map ESP. You won't see someone across the map anymore. Inside the circle ESP still works, so you'd still see people within roughly 100 to 200 m. Fortnite has worked pretty much like that for most of its life.
So what does it mean for MW4
It depends on how they actually build it. If they get a strict version working well, it's a real problem for ESP in MW4. If it ends up like most other games, with a distance version, it's not a big deal. You lose the far stuff and keep what's close.
Nobody outside Activision knows which one it'll be yet, us included. We'll update this post when it's out and we've seen it in real matches.
Call of Duty DMA has which builds work on Ricochet today. MW4 isn't on our builds' lists yet, so ask on the support forum before you buy for it.
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