Hero image: Brawlhalla. Image: Blue Mammoth Games
Blue Mammoth Games has published a public statement on cheating in Brawlhalla, and says “Lately, our enforcement has become much stricter.”
The post, titled “An Update on Our Anti-Cheating Measures”, went up on Steam at 1:12am AEDT on Saturday 17 October (we converted that from 14:12 UTC on Friday). It is signed Blue Mammoth Games. Steam lists Blue Mammoth Games as developer and Ubisoft as publisher.
The studio says the cheating it is dealing with is not the usual kind. It describes software that plays the game for the cheater.
“In Brawlhalla, cheaters are running programs that watch the game and press the buttons for them. These programs aren’t capable of doing anything beyond what is within the design of the game. A cheater’s program’s inputs are similar to those of a top level player, which means detecting them accurately takes extra care.”
The post gives a reason for the long silence. It says “any public post about cheating also advertises it”, so the studio did the work quietly until now.
It names a risk for players too. The post says people who sell and use these bots “have even distributed malware capable of silently screenshotting and keylogging on the systems of those who decide to trust them.”
On how the bots are caught, the studio gives nothing away.
“We can’t go into detail on how, because cheat-makers are reading this too and will use that information to get around it.”
It does state the penalties. The post says “Cheaters are being permanently banned and people who help make or distribute these tools risk future legal action.”
Players are asked to report suspected cheaters in the game. The post says “the in-game reports do actually help”, and warns that “Enforcement isn’t always immediate because we need confidence in the detection and can’t give info that would help cheat makers evade it.”
The post gives no ban figures and no date for a further update. Its closing line is “We’ll keep at it and keep you posted.”
Other games have been through the same fight in recent weeks. Our earlier coverage of ARC Raiders’ permanent bans sets out how that studio handled it.
Source: Blue Mammoth Games (Steam) – An Update on Our Anti-Cheating Measures, Steam – Brawlhalla