Outriders will permanently brand cheaters with HUD watermark

Outriders is coming out in a few days, and developer People Can Fly has some plans to ensure that some players don’t ruin the experience for everyone else. A rather drastic measure to deter cheaters has been announced, which will permanently and publicly brand the gameplay footage of those who use software like aimbots or use a trainer program, among other limitations.

Analysing the population who have played the recent Outriders demo, People Can Fly have confirmed that about 0.01% of players were cheating. One player went as far as giving themselves 600 Legendary Weapons by modifying the game files. This is not an especially large population, but it is significant enough to be a disruption for other players. As such, players found to be cheating will have several handicaps placed on their accounts.

Cheaters will not be able to matchmake with legit players in Outriders’ multiplayer. When cheaters do try to matchmake, it will take significantly longer. These limitations are account-wide, not character-specific. Players who have used cheating software can still play solo, however.

Finally, the HUD of offending players will have a permanently-displayed watermark, identifying all gameplay footage from that account as coming from a player using cheating software. Accounts will be checked for cheating software on launch day, and at regular intervals afterwards. Players who have played around with cheating software in the demo, but who do not intend to cheat in the main game, must delete all their characters and items to wipe the slate clean before starting the full release.

Stamping down on cheaters in online games can be a challenging task for developers. Software designed to prevent cheating can often be controversial and cause privacy concerns. Other developers have come up with more inventive solutions by forcing cheaters into competing against one another, as People Can Fly has done in Outriders. Excluding cheating players from matchmaking will at least make the experience for rule-abiding players more enjoyable. As for streamers who try and share gameplay footage while cheating, viewers will now know what they did.

Along with implementing these anti-cheat measures, Outriders will also see some improvements with the Day One patch. The patch will include various bug fixes and performance improvements, including frame rate options for cutscenes in the PC release. Outriders will release for Xbox Series X, PS5, PS4 , Xbox One and PC on April 1st 2021.