Developer People Can Fly is taking a different approach to dealing with cheaters in its forthcoming game Outriders. Rather than banning them from playing, it’s going to permanently brand their accounts with a visible in-game watermark.
Outriders is a cooperative third-person RPG published by Square Enix and set to launch on April 1 across PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Stadia, and Windows. In the run-up to the launch next week, People Can Fly posted a development update on Steam detailing launch timings, changes to the demo build, what’s in the Day 1 patch, and most interesting of all: the policy on cheating and hacking in the game.
Around two million players have already experienced the game, and of those People Can Fly identified 200 players “who had clearly cheated.” It works out to a very low 0.01% of players being classed as cheats. Even so, cheaters aren’t going unpunished, but they won’t be banned. Several repercussions are planned, with the following details shared on Steam:
- Repercussions are account wide, not character specific
- You will not be able to matchmake with legit players
- Matchmaking will likely take significantly longer
- You will still be able to play solo
- In future, your HUD will have a discreet but visible watermark placed on it so that gameplay footage created on this account can be readily identified as coming from a flagged account.
On launch day, all accounts will be checked for evidence of cheating, and then regular checks will be carried out after that. The repercussions will make it much harder to find others to play with, but the visible watermark is the most interesting addition to an account. It means regardless of how good you are after cheating, anyone watching you play will know you cheated at some point.
If you’re wondering what’s considered cheating, People Can Fly made that clear in the dev update, too. You’re cheating if you play the game without Easy Anti Cheat (EAC) running, modify game files to enhance your character, externally modify game time to reduce time-dependent features, use a trainer program to gain an advantage, or use aimbots and wallhacks.
