EA/MarvelHow do you solve the problem of cheaters and spammers in online games? Different developers have tried different approaches over the years to varying degrees of success, but Respawn Entertainment’s new tactic for fighting the pumpkin eaters in Apex Legends might be my favourite yet.
The studio behind the free-to-play battle royale extravaganza recently delivered an update on Reddit to let the Apex Legends community know what it’s doing in the un-ending battle against cheaters. There are some interesting new insights in the post that reveal Respawn is making a pretty big difference already.
EARespawn revealed that, among other things, it’s using “machine learning to create behavior models that detect and auto ban cheaters” and combating spam accounts before they can even be used by enforcing Two-factor authentication on high-risk accounts in certain regions.
Best of all though, Respawn revealed that it’s actually matching up detected cheaters and spammers so that they have to play against each other in matches, instead of against those normal people who just want to play the game for fun.
Obviously, detecting and banning those players with impure intentions isn’t an exact science, and we’re probably still years away from the day we can say it is – if such a day ever arrives. In the meantime, trapping cheaters and spammers in games with each other so that they’re forced to experience their own form of Apex Legends purgatory is a masterstroke.
Respawn wrote:
As we’ve said before, the war against cheaters will be ongoing and remains a high priority for us. There will always be work to do, improvements to make, and new things to adapt to. We’d like to thank the players that have been getting involved with helping us squash cheaters over the last week whether it be submitting reports or assisting with the vetting process for suspicious behavior.
The developer signed off by encouraging fans to report any cheaters they come across via this link – and added that while video proof of the player in question doing the dirty isn’t compulsory, it makes the whole process a lot easier for everyone.
EAApex Legends recently kicked off its second season of content, which saw new content and massive changers to the map as monstrous Leviathans and Flyers descended on King’s Canyon and caused all kinds of chaos thanks to an EMP attack that caused the tower previously keeping the animals out to collapse, paving the way for some dinosaur themed destruction.
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Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.