Anti Cheat in Marauders Explained
Marauders got its anti-cheat software changed to Denuvo which sparked controversies in the game's community. In this article you will learn what impact this change may have on your experience.
Set in a diesel-punk sci-fi universe, Marauders is an online FPP shooter where the player gets into the role of a space pirate. Game loop revolves around boarding, looting and escaping space frigates, which crews are AI controlled. However, there are also rival mercenary teams which consists of other players, who try to stop you. As every multiplayer title, Marauders is susceptible to cheaters. The developer, Small Impact Games, tries to address the situation, yet their efforts have been met with mixed reactions from players’ side. Let’s see what is going on.
Easy anti-cheat in Marauders
The first voices of concern from players started as soon as with the game’s closed alpha tests back in May 2022. Fans were doubtful that Easy Anti-Chat system implemented in Marauders will stop cheaters from plaguing the game. Those bad feelings were not unfounded as the other title from Marauder’s publisher – Team17, Hell Let Loose, was also using Easy Anti-Cheat and was known for being ineffective.
Players’ fears were unfortunately correct. With the game entering Steam’s Early Access program in October 2022, Marauders has seen increase in cheaters’ activity. This was not neglected by the developers who were working on a solution for that situation.
Denuvo controversies in Marauders
In late February 2023, Small Impact Games released a new patch for Marauders called Red Baron Hotfix 02. Among bugfixes and new content, the update implemented Denuvo’s anti-cheat system. The developers reassured that they have optimised the new software to reduce its impact on game’s performance. Small Impact Games implemented only Denuvo’s anti-cheat software without their anti-tamper solution. It means that all the players flagged by the anti-cheat will still have to be examined and banned manually.
As expected, players were unhappy with the Denuvo solution. Even though it seems like the anti-cheat software change indeed lowered the number of players cheating in the game, the new problem arose. In the last days players expressed their dissatisfaction as Denuvo uses kernel-level drivers to work. It means that theoretically the software can access everything stored on the computer it’s installed on. To add insult to injury, some of the fans reported that certain antivirus programs can flag Denuvo as a malware. Due to that, in some cases the antivirus software can block Denuvo’s installation and make it impossible to play the game.
Conclusion
It is really hard to balance between convenience and privacy, and effective protection against cheaters. Dishonest players will always find a new ways to gain unfair advantage in games if desperate enough. To counteract that, anti-cheat software has to gain more access to user’s computer to make sure that no files are changed in an improper manner.
As a silver lining, as long as the players are okay with some deeper level access for the Denuvo, it proved to be effective. There were also reports from players stating that indeed the new anti-cheat solution for Marauders does not deteriorate the game’s performance and doesn’t cause any game crashes.
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