PUBG has announced the implementation of a new anti-cheat measure is coming next week.
In news that is sure to be welcomed by any PUBG player who’s been the victim of cheaters, the developers at PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds have announced that their new system for detecting and banning cheaters will come to their live servers next week. The system is already in place on their test servers where it seems to have been an effective countermeasure to cheaters.
PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, affectionately abbreviated to PUBG, has seen a surge in cheating over the past year as PUBG’s popularity caused it to swell to nearly 30 million players. The company has identified the bulk of those cheaters being from China, where the country has less of a stigma against cheating in online games and also a thriving market of game hacking software.
"As you drop out of the airplane and the intense journey to become the last survivor begins, the last thing a player wants to see is a cheater,” the PUBG devs wrote on the Steam Community update page. “We deeply sympathize with the inconvenience that our players are experiencing due to cheat programs and we are doing our best to fight those who create, distribute and use cheats."
To that end, the developers have created a brand new anti-cheat “solution” that they’ll bring to the live servers next week. The devs are keeping specifics about the technology close to their chest for obvious reasons: the less a hacker knows about how the anti-cheat software works, the less they’ll be able to get around it.
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According to the devs, the focus for the new software will be blocking unauthorized programs (hacks) "but it will be further developed to broaden the scope of its abilities." We’re also told the software will block helper programs that change the game’s files to provide the player an unfair advantage, such as shader or graphics altering programs to make players easier to see.
PUBG devs acknowledge they may hit some harmless add-on software that some players add to the game, but as for patience while they work out the kinks.
In addition to this new internal software, PUBG announced they’ll update the reporting feature to make it faster and more efficient for players to report cheaters. They’ll also deactivate Steam’s family sharing, citing security vulnerabilities so players won’t be able to share accounts anymore.
The changes are certainly welcome, but the refrain in Steam’s comments is the same as the last update: “region lock China.”