PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) is one of the most popular battle royale games on the planet. Its massive popularity has led to widespread in-game cheating. The PUBG cheats often use hacks, plugins and other unauthorized modifications to gain an unfair advantage and survive till the end. One of the many hacks is a Chinese backdoor virus called Huigezi Trojan horse that allows the hacker to control a player’s PC with the virus and extract necessary information illegally. The latest Update 14 for the game is going to give PUBG cheats a hard time.
Anti-cheat tech to keep PUBG cheats away from its servers
Cheating is so prevalent in PUBG that Dell recently advertised its new G series laptop as a superior device for running PUBG plugins. Here, ‘plugin’ is a euphemism for hacks and cheats. Dell said its new laptops allow PUBG players to “run more plugins” to win games. It is unclear how one laptop could be better than others in helping you cheat in a video game. It does show how critical and prevalent cheating is among PUBG players.
Back in April, 15 people were arrested in China for creating and selling a variety of PUBG cheats. Last year, PUBG Corp partnered with BattlEye to offer better protection to players and prevent cheating. BattlEye banned 1.5 million PUBG players in December 2017 alone. Many more millions have been banned since the beginning of this year including over a million people in January. However, cheating remains a major issue despite PUBG and BattlEye’s best efforts.
Update on the number of PUBG bans: 1,500,000.
— BattlEye (@TheBattlEye) December 28, 2017
In its effort to keep PUBG cheats away from its servers, the developer has introduced a new Anti-cheat mechanism with the Update 14, which was rolled out on Thursday. PUBG Corp hopes the Anti-cheat technology will help address a large number of complaints of widespread cheating. The company did not detail how the new technology would work, and whether it would complement or replace BattlEye. The game is available for PC and Xbox One.
The PUBG anti-cheat technology is the biggest highlight of the new update. The company said it had rolled out the anti-cheat solution, developed in-house, to the test servers. The developer has sought user feedback before implementing the PUBG anti-cheat mechanism on live servers.
Players interested in checking out the PUBG anti-cheat tech will have to select a new pre-match “Enable Anti-cheat” box. If you experience any bugs or issues with the feature, you can disable it. However, the option to disable it will not be there when it is moved to the live servers. The PUBG anti-cheat solution will remain on the test servers until additional testing is complete.
What else does the Update 14 bring?
The throwable weapons have also seen some major changes. The latest update has buffed the damage and effective range of the frag grenades. In a recent update, the developer had removed the frag’s knockback effect, which reduced its impact. The enhanced range and damage have restored its killing power. The stun grenades will now hinder the stunned player’s hearing, vision, and the ability to shoot accurately.
The Molotovs have become far more dangerous than before. They will now have a bigger area of impact. They would also produce the fire that spreads along walls and wooden surfaces. It is also possible to shoot a Molotov in mid-air to trigger an explosion. The new features will make Molotovs, one of the least popular items, more appealing.
The developer noted that they have nurfed the M24. It has been removed from the care package drops and added to the loot spawn table. It means the M24 rifle will now serve as a viable alternative to the Kar98K bolt action rifle.
According to the patch notes, the Update 14 also improves PUBG’s performance and stability, thanks to tons of back-end work. The developers have updated the rendering of character models to prevent frame drops. They have also increased the frame rate by optimizing character animations and movement while skydiving. You’ll also notice improvements in network performance and server responsiveness. The server tick rate has almost doubled following the update.
It also fixes a bug related to vaulting in Erangel. There is also a new UI message that appears when you are unable to use a healing item.
Meanwhile, PUBG’s Sanhok map has entered fourth beta testing, which is probably the last phase before it goes live. You can expect the new Sanhok map to return to test servers soon.
PUBG sues Fortnite developer over copyright infringement
In related news, PUBG Corp has sued Fortnite developer Epic Games in South Korea over copyright infringement, reports Bloomberg. PUBG told Bloomberg that it wanted to “protect our copyrights.” The battle royale game PUBG was released in March 2017. About six months later, Epic Games added a battle royale mode to Fortnite. The concept is similar, and PUBG Corp has accused Epic Games of “replicating the experience for which PUBG is known.”
PUBG was dominating the battle royale niche until the release of Fortnite. According to latest data, PUBG’s player count has declined by more than 50% since January this year. In contrast, Fortnite is dominating the PC, mobile, and consoles, and has become the largest free-to-play console game of all time. PUBG had 3.2 million concurrent players in January, but the number has gone down to less than 1.4 million now.
