‘Escape From Tarkov’ developer under fire after video claims to reveal widespread cheating

Escape From Tarkov developer Battlestate Games has issued a statement outlining its plans to tackle cheaters in the game, following the release of a community-made video that appears to show how prevalent cheating in Tarkov is.

• READ MORE: Investigating the hacking arms race at the heart of ‘Escape From Tarkov’

On Saturday (February 25), a video titled ‘The Wiggle That Killed Tarkov‘ showed content creator g0at using cheats to work out how many cheaters appear in raid. To do so, g0at wiggled to players his cheats highlighted through walls and floors – other players frequently wiggled back, outing themselves as using cheats by showing they could also see him.

The content creator claims to have investigated 125 raids using cheats and although he never encountered anyone using the likes of fly-hacking or invincibility, he stated “there were obvious cheaters in about 60 per cent of my raids.”

G0at’s findings prompted an outcry from the Tarkov community. Many posts in the Escape From Tarkov Reddit alleged that Battlestate Games does not do enough to prevent hacking, with several days of backlash leading to lead developer Nikita Buyanov releasing a statement on Sunday (February 26).

“Every time for a long time, unfortunately, one way or another, a problem with cheaters pops up. And people immediately start blaming us for not caring,” wrote Buyanov. “We have always been concerned about this problem and the work to catch cheaters is always going on. They usually come in waves. Right now we ban several thousand cheaters a day and usually most of them are blocked after playing a little.”

Buyanov added that the game’s third-party anti-cheat software, BattlEye, “continues to improve” and has been updated four times in the last week. Additionally, Battlestate Games will update its anti-cheat “soon” and plans to “start working on a new hacker detection methods to automate it and improve the overall quality and speed of cheater detection and banning.”

Finally, Buyanov shared that players will soon be notified if players they report are banned.

However, the statement has been criticised by players who do not believe tangible changes will be delivered. Others have pointed out that Buyanov’s statement is similar to one he released several years ago, and claim cheating has become even worse since then.

Last year, Battlestate Games said fighting hackers is “one of the most prioritised tasks” at the studio, with Buyanov claiming he is “constantly” asked about improving the game’s anti-cheat.

Earlier in the month, Escape From Tarkov started using community volunteers to crack down on cheating.

In other gaming news, Cyanide Studio has released a statement addressing issues surrounding the launch of Blood Bowl 3.

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