A Call of Duty fan served a full 4,999-day ban: 13 years later, he’s back to playing
A Modern Warfare 3 (2011) player can return to multiplayer thirteen years after being banned.
Some people promise to return to a video game when they have time and then disappear forever, but at the other extreme is this Call of Duty fan, who received a 4,999-day ban in Modern Warfare 3—the game from the original trilogy, released in 2011—and decided to wait patiently for it to expire rather than give up on the game altogether. Thirteen years later, his punishment has finally come to an end, and he has been able to return to the multiplayer modes of one of the franchise’s most memorable titles.
An intergenerational ban: the player who was banned from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 multiplayer for a whopping five thousand days
As lukemanufc—the affected user—explains in several videos recently posted on his TikTok account, it all began during the heyday of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, the title originally released for PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 in 2011. The player claims he spent the vast majority of his time playing Search and Destroy mode, where matches are shorter and confrontations are usually resolved with just a few kills per round, but where you gain a lot of experience if the outcome is favorable. This peculiar way of playing apparently caused him, match after match, to accumulate statistics that were unusual for suspicious behavior detection systems.
The user claims that Infinity Ward misinterpreted that data as potential boosting or progression manipulation. According to the user, a few months after the game’s release, he suffered two complete resets of his level and progress, culminating in a third, more severe penalty: a temporary ban of 5,000 days—equivalent to more than thirteen and a half years—during which he was barred from playing online multiplayer modes.
Instead of creating alternate accounts or giving up on the game altogether, lukemanufc has made a comeback in 2026 and uploaded a new video showing that the ban has expired. The timer has finally reached zero, allowing him to once again access the various multiplayer modes of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 using the same account that received such an unusual ban over a decade ago.
The story has gone viral not only because of the length of the ban, but also because it puts into perspective just how much time has passed since then. When he received the ban, the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One didn’t even exist yet, Infinity Ward hadn’t released the Modern Warfare reboot, and the Call of Duty franchise was still in its prime, far removed from the controversies and trends of recent times, such as battle passes or the battle royale phenomenon. Thirteen years later, this player—unfairly? accused of cheating—has finally been able to return to the very game from which he was banned. And who knows? Only time will tell if he’ll continue to enjoy his games without any new, high-profile incidents.
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