Modern Warfare 4's beta locks PC players out of every online mode without TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot

Activision's Ricochet anti-cheat team has published a guide walking PC players through switching on TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot ahead of the first weekend of the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 beta, Eurogamer reports. Both Windows security features are now mandatory for online play.

The requirement itself is not new — TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot have been attached to Call of Duty for a couple of years — but enforcement has been tightened for Modern Warfare 4 compared with Black Ops 7 and the current version of Warzone. Players who previously failed the check were "restricted from accessing certain game modes (including Ranked Play) and playlists", and Activision warned they "may be placed in separate matchmaking pools with other players who do not meet these requirements". For the Modern Warfare 4 beta the wording is absolute: players who do not meet the requirements "will be restricted from playing any online game mode".

Alongside the written guide, the team released a video that runs through the process, including UEFI/BIOS walkthroughs for both AMD and Intel systems and an explanation of the different names each platform uses for TPM. Activision also points players to the Call of Duty Secure Attestation Wizard, a downloadable PC app that tests whether a machine meets the security requirements. It was updated earlier this month in time for Modern Warfare 4.

Secure Boot is a low-level system feature that loads during the PC's startup phase, giving anti-cheat software deeper access to the Windows install so it can stop cheats running at boot. TPM 2.0 builds on that with a hardware-based layer of protection that detects when the boot process has been tampered with.

Both have become increasingly common requirements in competitive PC games, including Battlefield 6 and Valorant. Battlefield 6 already enforces Secure Boot, and Battlefield Studios is looking to require TPM 2.0 as well. Speaking to Eurogamer before that game's launch, technical director Christian Buhl said the technology was effective at preventing cheats but that he was not thrilled with how many players the requirements keep out.