No likes cheating in multiplayer games. The cheater is a greedy game-ruining influence. If you want to cheat in singleplayer games that have no impact on other players, that’s fine. But the reality of PC gaming has made it much easier to use trainers and other cheats in many games. Some developers are cracking down more than usual for some games as well. Outriders cheating has become the latest target for a crackdown.
Starting on April 1, People Can Fly will be checking accounts for evidence of cheating. So using hacks or cheats of any kind have a chance to get your branded. The patch will check for cheats and brand cheaters. Those that get caught get a watermark somewhere in your HUD that displays them as a cheater. The watermark will show up in any gameplay footage and streaming, so that means cheaters will be easier to spot on social media and in gameplay footage.
So far the developer has only pegged down 200 cheaters in Outriders. With a game getting millions of players, that’s some very good news. Seeing such a small population of cheaters playing is a good sign for the initial health of the game. That only applies to the demo, which is only a small percentage of the playerbase. And it appears as though the current iteration can be removed. Players who cheated in the demo can delete any characters and items on the cheating account and get the infraction removed.
It’s been made clear that the developer will only allow the exception during the demo, and apply account-wide punishments that restrict matchmaking, and means you only get to play with other cheaters.
Currently, here’s what the developer considers cheating:
- Intentionally running the game on PC without Easy Anti Cheat (EAC)
- Modifying game files to enhance a character: levels, skills, inventory, etc.
- Externally modifying game time to reduce time dependent features such as vendors and challenges
- Using a trainer program or similar to gain advantages within the game
- Using gameplay altering programs such as aimbots or wallhacks
This is a very similar approach to what Overkill has done for PayDay 2. Accounts that even cheated in singleplayer have a chance to be branded with the CHEATER tag in that game. It’s very likely that Outriders cheating will be policed in a similar way.