Cheaters are already ruining Halo Infinite multiplayer games – The Verge

Halo Infinite is currently suffering from an influx of hackers and cheaters. Halo Infinite players have been reporting multiple instances of cheaters over the Thanksgiving weekend, with recordings showing people clearly using aimbots and wallhacks to cheat. It’s the latest game to be hit by an increase in cheating across the world’s biggest PC games.

Reddit and Twitter users have been posting clips of cheaters, where you can clearly see them snapping to players and getting killing sprees, or tracing rival players through walls. Most of these cheaters are clearly using third-party software on PC, and it has led many players to call for an option to disable crossplay.

Halo Infinite currently mixes players across PC and Xbox in quick-play modes and even most ranked modes unless PC players are playing solo or in a pair. While disabling crossplay could fix most cheaters for console players, cheats also exist on the console side through third-party controllers like Cronus. These modified controllers allow players to reduce recoil, increase the effects of aim assist, and generally outplay opponents.

Unlike many other PC games, Halo Infinite doesn’t use an anti-cheat solution like Easy Anti-Cheat, BattlEye, or even a custom client-side detection system. Instead, 343 Industries has opted for a server-side behavior-based system that’s supposed to detect cheaters and boot them out of the game.

This behavior-based system clearly isn’t working well yet, and cheat providers are advertising tools that include aimbots, wallhacks, infinite ammo, infinite abilities, infinite grenades, rapid fire mods, speed hacks, and even the ability to jump up to five times higher.

Halo Infinite players are understandably frustrated. As Halo Infinite is free to play, it’s likely easy for cheaters to create another Microsoft Account and keep evading bans. A lack of client-side anti-cheat could be a big problem unless 343 Industries gets on top of these hacks and can detect them properly.

Halo Infinite has had a popular debut on PC, with an all-time peak of more than 250,000 players on its first day of release earlier this month. The game has been averaging around 150,000 daily peaks since its release, too.

Cheaters have also been targeting games like CS:GO, Apex Legends, Call of Duty: Warzone, Destiny 2, PUBG, and many other popular multiplayer titles. While the cheating problems have certainly improved in games like Call of Duty: Warzone and Destiny 2, thanks to new anti-cheat systems, Halo Infinite seems to be the latest target for cheaters who just want to ruin the fun for everyone else.