The Octane, as seen in Rocket League.
Image via Psyonix

Rocket League to Add Easy Anti-Cheat, Sparking Community Backlash

Rocket League just made a big announcement on their socials, and fans are not happy about it. According to the announcement, Rocket League will have Easy-Anti Cheat enabled starting April 28th, and it has many fans mad at Epic Games and Psyonix.

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Here is why the addition of Easy-Anti Cheat is bad for the game, and why fans are not taking it lightly.

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What Is Easy Anti-Cheat?

The Fennec, as seen in Rocket League.
Image via Psyonix

There is a good chance you’ve heard of Easy Anti-Cheat; it’s used in multiplayer games like Fortnite and Apex Legends. As the name suggests, it’s an anti-cheat system designed to keep multiplayer games fair by detecting and preventing cheating.

It runs in the background when you launch a supported game, scanning your system for known cheat programs, monitoring running processes, and checking that the game’s files haven’t been tampered with. If it finds anything suspicious, it will flag it and log you out of the game.

Why Fans Are Against It

But if Easy-Anti Cheat makes Rocket League secure, why are fans mad about it? It’s because Easy Anti-Cheat also works against mods. Because mods look very similar to a cheat from the anti-cheat’s perspective. Many mods work by altering game files, injecting code, or modifying memory, the same methods cheats use. 

Bakkesmod is one of the most popular mods in Rocket League, and pretty much everyone who has played the game for a while uses it. It has a bunch of features and has become an essential mod for many RL players. With Easy Anti-Cheat, you can’t use BakkesMod, which is why fans are angry.

One of the main problems with cheating in RL is bots. Basically, people were using custom-trained bots in ranked matches to get easy wins. These weren’t just your average AI bots, but highly-skilled and trained using Machine Learning tools. These bots weren’t breaking the rules of the games; they were just really good and were destroying ranked lobbies

Fans are mad because the addition of Easy Anti-Cheat doesn’t fix the bot problem; it just removes BakkesMod and other useful mods from the game.  This reply to the tweet summarizes the situation perfectly.

There hasn’t been any follow-up from the official channels regarding this situation. For now, we can only wait to see whether they have a workaround for BakkesMod.

Author
Image of Burair Noor
Burair Noor
Burair covers all things racing at Operation Sports Gaming. Whether it’s tearing up the track in F1, drifting in Forza, or testing the limits in sims, Burair loves diving into the thrill of motorsport games and sharing that passion with fellow fans.