One of the Xbox One’s biggest games, online multiplayer shooter Titanfall, is proving to be a playground for cheaters. But is it worse than Call of Duty?
You almost can’t fault Titanfall’s execution. That’s what the critics and players have been saying in both their reviews and in their hurriedly excited tweets praising the multiplayer, first person shooter that only has an online mode. Its free-running , firefights and the ability that it gives to players to battle it out and knock the nuts, bolts and rust out of each other via the means of giant mechs, have been a huge draw but it’s not just a draw to players of the game (which has so far been released for PC and Xbox One, with an Xbox 360 release later this month), it’s also a huge draw to cheaters, with players already complaining to the game’s developer, Respawn Entertainment of the issue, but the biggest problem of all is that there don’t seem to be huge roadblocks in place to stop them.
The lack of these virtual roadblocks is clear to players too, with one disgruntled fan taking to Twitter to tell a member of the Titanfall dev team. Twitter user ‘@Peyman_std’ tweeted that “Hackers are getting out of hand only 3 days after launch. Whats going on ?!!!!!!”, garnering Peyman a reply for Jon Shiring, an Engineer for Titanfall who told them that ”[Respawn] have anti-cheat but it is not enabled yet – it will be soon. This is important to [them].” The fact that the measures have yet to be included in the game is a particular sore spot for players, with many suggesting that this is a feature that should have been included in the game in the first place, given the fact that multiplayer games have shown themselves to be playgrounds for cheaters.
Furthermore, Titanfall’s issues show the leaky cracks in the dam when compared to Call of Duty, a series lauded for its multiplayer component in which hackers and cheaters alike have tried and failed to make the most of the game. That failure has been down to the dev teams behind the series as well as hard work by Activision, the franchise’s publisher. When a glitch sees a player able to jump on a car, glide across the map and blitz every player to smithereens with a hastily reloaded grenade launched, Call of Duty fixes that in days, knowing full well what sort of problems it can cause when players don’t have a level playing field to shoot the virtual snot out of each other. This is the sort of attention that Respawn would likely want to provide to their new IP, but the first game in what’s looking to be a series is suffering from some clear teething problems.
Respawn are however rubbing the metaphoric brandy on players’ gums by announcing that they have already begun kicking the offending cheaters from the game, with a tweet from the studio’s official Twitter account saying that “Curious about anti-cheat/hackers? We have started kicking players and more will follow.” Jon Shiring also weighed in on the situation again, saying that “[Respawn] are starting to [catch and ban cheaters] now. It’s useful to watch them a bit without revealing your hand.” so as it’s not even a week after Titanfall’s launch, we’ll be able to see just what cards Respawn Entertainment are holding soon.
Source(s): vg247, Jon Shiring’s Twitter (1), (2)
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