The extraction shooter Escape from Tarkov continues to enjoy great popularity even years after its release. If only it weren’t for the pesky hackers who regularly ruin the fun for players. The developers have been accused of not doing enough against the “cheater plague,” and now they are making a clear statement.
What is the cheating problem about? Since the server wipe in December, players of Escape from Tarkov have increasingly complained about brazen hackers and cheaters. They don’t even bother to hide their cheating.
The developers were accused of not doing enough against the cheater plague. Nikita Buanov, the game director, addressed the issues via reddit and assured that they are taking care of it, working on solutions, and banning thousands of cheaters.
Simply banning users of wallhacks, aimbots, and the like apparently was not enough for the developers at Battlestate Games. They wanted to make a statement and publicly expose the troublemakers.
Here you can find a trailer for the latest map “Streets of Tarkov”:
Signs against cheaters and for honest players
What are the developers doing? As reported by the US site TechCrunch, Tarkov alone banned 6,700 cheaters last week. But that’s not all. Additionally, the usernames of each individual were shared publicly in a practical spreadsheet.
What’s the point? The publication of player names is intended to work in two ways: On the one hand, the cheaters are publicly exposed, and on the other, the honest players are shown that Battlestate is doing something about the problem:
We want honest players to see the nicknames of the cheaters to know that justice has been served and that the cheater who killed them in the raid has been punished and banned.
Battlestate spokesperson Dmitri Ogorodnikov via TechCrunch
This radical approach is not intended to be a one-time thing; rather, the names of cheaters are to be published regularly from now on. The Tarkov Twitter account already features several spreadsheets, which include not only cheaters but also banned real-money sellers (via Twitter).
How does the community react? Reactions on Twitter are rather mixed. While the attempt to combat cheaters is quite positively received, some players do report being able to perceive a change.
However, the general public seems to have little hope that this problem can actually be brought under control. They report ongoing encounters with cheaters, who simply buy a new account anyway; moreover, some claim that the bans do not always target the right individuals, but also include innocents (via Twitter).
The Tarkov streamer Lvndmark, who has also been accused of cheating, is not on the list. However, a player named “LvndMalk” is. The original has now developed his own concept to deal with the problem:
