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EA DICE is cracking down on Battlefield 1 cheating

EA DICE is cracking down on Battlefield 1 cheating

The developer behind 2016's Battlefield 1 has outlined how it plans to cut down cheating in its first-person shooter.

In a blog post on the game's site, anti-cheat producer Sean Merson wrote a topline view of how it is tackling cheaters, saying that it has been ramping up its anti-cheat efforts in the last six months.

The team has been working with FairFight, the anti-cheat system Battlefield 1 uses, to remove users not playing by the rules. As part of this effort, 8,500 people have been 'sanctioned', resulting in a drop in cheating.

DICE has refuted accusations that it has been unfairly banning, or 'sanctioning' players, saying that it is confident that the cheat detection methods are accurate. The studio also posits that cheat developers are spreading misinformation and are trying to figure out how the game developers are detecting cheats.

Furthermore, the team has announced changes to the FairFight messaging system, which previously sent an alert every single time the anti-cheat system had acted against a player. These were disabled a few months ago due to them being a distraction but they are going to be returning, with all bans from a 24 hour period being uploaded into a single post.

"We are always developing new ways to detect players who prefer to circumvent the fair rules of the game, and we’re confident we will prevail," Merson said.

"The Anti-Cheat teams here at DICE and EA are working hard every day to even out the playing field by removing cheaters from our games. We will not stop until the community is happy with the results.

"As always, continue to give feedback via our social channels and the Battlefield forums. While we might not be able to directly respond, you can rest assured that these messages are being read and relayed to the team every day."

Cheating has become something of a hot topic within games, with developers working hard to stop negative elements of the community.

PUBG Corp has outlined how it plans to cut down on cheaters after the studio's anti-cheat partner BattlEye was forced to ban thousands of players in the summer.

Meanwhile, Epic Games has been issuing lawsuits to users caught cheating, including a minor, which is not ideal.

EA has revealed that there's a new Battlefield game on the way at the end of this year. This title will be filling the gap left by Anthem, which has been pushed back - or 'delayed' - from its autumn 2018 release window to early 2019 in a move that EA insists is not a delay. 


PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.