It doesn’t matter if you are an ardent fan of Apex Legends or if you play any other online game. The presence of cheaters, bots, and those who leverage Cronus to their advantage is becoming a huge problem online. Gone are the days when you could sit down and know without any semblance of doubt that the person you were playing against did not have an advantage.
Now, we’re not here to disparage Cronus Zen. It’s a phenomenal design and a gamechanger, but for many people who play Apex Legends, it is not a device that has proven to be a net positive.
Today, we’re going to look at how fending off cheaters has become a key task for the devs at Apex Legends, how effective their approach has been, and whether they will be able to keep cheaters out of the game as this technology gets more sophisticated.
Learning From Other Industries
Over the last 18 months, Respawn and EA have both made concerted efforts to curb cheating right across their gaming catalogue. However, with Apex being one of their biggest money spinners and cheating having such an adverse impact, it became a priority to remove these people from the game to ensure fairer competition.
Having remastered the original legends last summer, gaming integrity has not been the only thing on the agenda over the last couple of years; however, there have been some real positives that have helped the sentiment around the game improve over the last 18 months.
The success of any gaming sector depends heavily on how secure and fair its design is. The online gambling market has embraced many of the technological innovations that have helped keep sinister cheaters on the fringes of the market.
Now, in casino gaming, we’re talking about an industry that is worth hundreds of billions of dollars; the stakes are higher, pun intended. These games are enshrined in robust legislation, and the industry’s zero-tolerance approach to cheating has helped it grow and develop a reputation as a fair and firm form of online gaming.
This applies to some of the most renowned forms of online betting, as well as niche games like Plinko, which have seen a surge in new users over the last few years. Those who play Plinko games online understand that these games are subject to the same scrutiny and auditing as the market-leading games, and it is by adopting this approach to all games, big or small, that Plinko enjoys the same validity and integrity as table classics.
What Does The Approach Look Like?
The introduction of AI into the gaming world has proven to be a significant tool in the arsenal of both developers and those looking to cheat on Apex Legends. AI-powered aimbots have been well documented across the Apex digital community, but they are not as prevalent as some would have you believe.
In fact, Respawn has integrated AI, but it is not the silver bullet some people believe it is. Lifelike NPCs, dynamic content, and vivid world design are just some of the areas that AI will transform in gaming over the next decade. When it comes to cheating detection, it is a multi-pronged approach. AI makes up one of these prongs, so to speak.
However, some of the more short-term impactful moves have stemmed from better tracking of gamers with a proven track record of cheating, identifying smurfing accounts, and streamlining how player feedback reports are handled.
Instead of going to the back of the line, they are now treated as high priority, meaning these cheaters are identified, investigated, and banned far more quickly, and the punishments have been more severe, with many of these cheats being banned from Apex indefinitely.
Those who have spent a lot of time on Apex over the last six months will have noticed a shift toward banning those who share teams and ranked boosters, with ranked system changes making it much more challenging for cheaters looking to climb to the top tiers.
Moving Forwards
For Apex to make a serious dent and catch cheaters for good, there needs to be a marked improvement in how they detect hardware fraud, such as Cronus, as we touched on in our introduction.
There’s been a multipartisan approach from those in the gaming market to curb controller cheating and identify and cut off those who attempt to use altered controllers that provide an unfair advantage online.
While this detection has been moving in the right direction, the precision of this technology will improve over time, enabling it to catch more cheaters in real time. However, it will be a cumulative approach, including all the factors we saw today, a more sophisticated use of AI, and greater reliance on detailed reports from other players to stop cheaters before they’re able to climb the ranks. It will be a constant battle, but for the sake of competitive gaming, we hope it is one that Respawn can win in the long run.
