When a game becomes particularly popular, cheating inevitably follows. With over 7 million Steam sales and counting, Fall Guys has unsurprisingly attracted plenty of cheats and hacks, and it’s starting to impact players’ enjoyment of the game.
Fall Guys dev Mediatonic promised in early August that it was working on a solution, and now we know what it is: the company plans to release a “BIG update” in the next couple of weeks that “adds the same anti-cheat used by games such as Fortnite”.
We’re really sorry about the cheating problem!We’re expanding the current detection system this week to improve thingsWe also have a BIG update in the next couple of weeks that adds the same anti-cheat used by games such as FortniteThanks for bearing with us![Not BeanBot]September 6, 2020
Fortnite dev Epic Games, famous for its free game giveaways, purchased Kamu in 2018, a Helsinki-based company that created the Easy Anti-Cheat service. Kamu currently lists 124 PC games on its website that use its anti-cheat software, and it appears Fall Guys will soon add to that number.
Assuming Easy Anti-Cheat works the same way that it does with Fortnite, you will be prompted to install an EAC patch, and won’t be able to play the game until it detects the software on your computer.
Until then, Mediatonic says it will expand its current “detection system” to catch cheaters during the game. This detection software kicks cheaters out at the conclusion of the round after they use a cheat, and Mediatonic tweeted that this system has already reduced the amount of successful cheating.
But it’s also true that plenty of hackers go undetected, to the frustration of the other 59 players.
One prominent example occurred during Fallmania, an unofficial $5,000 Fall Guys tournament in late August. During the final round, the announcers moaned when a hacker flew across the stage, wondering aloud if the four finalists had any chance of winning the crown now. The cheater survived several rounds, without getting booted from the game, before being eliminated during a team game, when his teammates refused to play.
In the meantime: pic.twitter.com/aAZ3ccnNlzSeptember 6, 2020
Until the Anti-Cheat patch is added, team games are players’ only in-game remedy against cheaters, and Mediatonic said as much in a recent tweet. They encourage gamers with cheaters on their squad to refuse to play so the cheater is eliminated. While effective, it’s also frustrating for these players to have to give up their chance of winning, because they had the misfortune of being paired with a cheater.
Hopefully, the tools that keep Fortnite relatively hack-free will help clean up the latest battle royale to take the world by storm.