Outriders dev promises to permanently brand cheaters with a HUD watermark to expose their cheating ways

People Can Fly has issued a stark warning to those who cheated in the Outriders demo, vowing to brand their HUD with a watermark if they keep it up when the game launches proper.

"We can see you all," the Polish studio said in a post on reddit. "Yes, even the person who gave themselves 600 legendary weapons."

Since the Outriders demo launched, cheating has been a hotly-debated topic. Progress made in the demo carries forward into the main game, so there is concern among legitimate players that the balance of the looter shooter will be thrown in chaos by cheating already done in the demo.

People Can Fly said that when the demo hit two million players, it identified 200 who had clearly cheated - or 0.01 per cent.

The studio said it expects this percentage will not grow by much as Outriders moves through launch on 1st April and beyond, but it wanted to outline the steps it's taking to make sure everyone's playing ball.

Cheaters who are identified by the developer will see account-wide repercussions - not character specific. Cheaters won't be able to matchmake with legit players, either - and matchmaking will take "significantly" longer.

Cheaters will still be able to play solo, but in the future their HUD will have a "discreet but visible watermark" placed on it so gameplay footage created on their account can be identified as coming from a flagged account.

People Can Fly said all accounts will be checked for evidence of cheating use on launch day, and then at regular intervals post-launch.

"Any account logs found to have evidence of cheating on them on or after launch day will be permanently branded," People Can Fly said.

That's pretty clear, but what if you cheated during the demo "just to try it out" but wish to go into the main game unbranded?

People Can Fly said that if this is you, you must delete all your characters and items on your entire account "in order to wipe the slate clean".

"You should not carry over any progress between demo and main game if you previously cheated but do not plan to do so in the main game," People Can Fly said.

So, what counts as cheating in Outriders? People Can Fly issued a list:

• Intentionally running the game on PC without Easy Anti Cheat (EAC).
• Modifying game files to enhance a character: levels, skills, inventory, etc.
• Externally modifying game time to reduce time dependent features such as vendors and challenges.
• Using a trainer program or similar to gain advantages within the game.
• Using gameplay altering programs such as aimbots or wallhacks.

Players who are regularly kicked by multiplayer hosts shortly after joining may also be manually reviewed as an additional anti-cheat/anti-grief safeguard, People Can Fly said. Using performance tweaking software (such as RivaTuner for example) to improve a personal game experience is not considered cheating.

Of note, the mention of "externally modifying game time to reduce time dependent features such as vendors and challenges" is something a lot of players did in the demo to farm powerful items before People Can Fly cracked down on it. The developer said that if you did this in the demo you'll be fine because "we hadn't yet made it clear not to". Anyone who does it going forward, however, will suffer the dreaded brand.

As you'd expect, farming is not considered cheating (the Outriders demo has had a quite fascinating back and forth with farming since it came out).

"We reserve the right to update and change this policy in future," People Can Fly said.

Consider yourself warned.

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