We’ve all seen our fair share of cheaters in online shooters. Nothing gets the blood boiling quite like squaring off against someone who’s either invulnerable or using an aimbot to get a leg up on everyone else. Outriders, the looter shooter from developer People Can Fly and publisher Square Enix releasing in just a week, has already had penalties for any and all cheating detailed. To put it bluntly, the cheaters that thought they were so clever in the Outriders demo can expect repercussions to come as soon as launch day. The people who made Painkiller clearly don’t mess around.
People Can Fly has posted a day 1 dev update on Steam that lays out any and all upcoming changes that players can expect moving forward. Among the notable information is that the game will launch at 12 PM ET on April 1.
But it goes on to the subject of cheating. Outriders hit roughly 2 million players with the demo, and only around 200 people, or .01%, took part in any cheating. Anyone who’s caught cheating will be permanently branded as such, which has a host of negatives associated with it. Firstly, these hit entire accounts, not just characters. Additionally, cheaters can’t matchmake with non-cheaters. Matchmaking will, naturally, also take much longer or become practically impossible. All cheater HUDs will also have a watermark indicating that an account is flagged, so anyone cheater who is streaming will be outed quite quickly.
I got mad at the cheat
The next big question is: what exactly constitutes cheating in Outriders? People Can Fly’s developer update breaks this down as well. The simple act of playing the game without Easy Anti-Cheat enabled? That’s cheatin’. You modify any game files to buff your character? Cheatin’. Trainers? Cheatin’. Aimbots and wallhacks? Oh, you better believe that’s cheatin’. And don’t even think of making modifications to reduce wait times for vendors and challenges.
If you’ve been cheatin’, you’ll have to delete all of your characters and items to avoid the permanent brand before launch. People Can Fly doesn’t have time for cheaters and their shenanigans when it comes the serious business going on in Outriders. Don’t make it stop the car and come back there.
