Let's deal with the elephant in the room. EA, what are you going to do about hackers? What are the anti-cheat plans for Battlefield 2042?
If you've been playing Warzone these past two years, which I suspect a great many of our shooter-inclined readers have been, then you'll already be unfortunately familiar with how bad cheating can become. Perhaps Warzone's biggest flaw was going free-to-play, but then would it have reached the same heights of popularity otherwise? Unlikely.
There's really no easy answer for developers, but it's not a question that can be ignored. A lot of players are asking EA: “What are you going to do now the cheaters have arrived?” Well, here's what they've said, and a few things they could do.
Hackers Are Selling Battlefield 2042 Cheats
We needed to update this article on-launch with some unfortunate news: Battlefield 2042 cheats are now available to purchase from hackers. Here's what the hack trading sites were boasting from even pre-launch:
Battlefield 2042 will be released this year and our team is already working on a full featured hack for the game. Our development team is on the beta testing team and we plan to have the first product released along with the beta!
It makes you want to scream. But yes, unfortunately, cheats are available for Battlefield 2042.
What Are The Anti-Cheat Plans For Battlefield 2042?
EA has a policy of permanently banning players who are caught cheating and has been developing detection systems used in BFV that they plan to continue improving and using for Battlefield 2042. Here's how they explain their anti-cheat systems:
We use a combination of in-game and server technology, such as FairFight, along with information from external websites, player reporting, and social channels. Having worked on anti-cheat for a long time, we have the knowledge combined with a refined set of procedures to identify cheating.
Though, as they later admit in the same blog post, banning a cheater is not the silver bullet that a game needs. No indeed, it sounds like they are employing industry-standard methods, which we've seen fail in Warzone.
Let's not forget their other big advantage here, though. The fact that the game is not free-to-play is going to do a lot to persuade cheaters to move to another title. But then Modern Warfare 2019, which became Warzone, was also free at launch, and only later opened up the BR mode to be played freely. So perhaps Battlefield will do the same, and lose that initial protection against cheaters.
There is at least one way for the players themselves to reduce their experience of cheating in-game, if EA allows it we don't know, but we suggest it beneath.
Does Battlefield 2042 Have Crossplay?
Battlefield 2042 has crossplay between PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5, while the older-generation PS4s and Xbox Ones can crossplay separately. For a full guide to crossplay check outthis guide.
"Hang on? What's this got to do with anti-cheat" some of you might be asking, but not those who have had to deal with cheaters in Warzone these past two years. As those players will have learned: the most effective anti-cheat is simply disabling crossplay with PC. That's where all these cheats originate from, after all. So, we can deal with cheaters ourselves by disabling cross-play functionality (sorry PC users).