One of the ills that plagues not just Halo Infinite, but almost every multiplayer game worth its salt, is the problem of cheaters using cheats in games. But it is clear that in some titles it is more blatant than in others, and the new Master Chief game is one of the most affected by this phenomenon.
If you’re a regular player in the Halo franchise, I’m not telling you anything new. There are quite a few cheaters in multiplayer, and while 343 Industries has been polishing its anti-cheat system for a few months now, the truth is that some still slip through. Fortunately, the studio remains committed to the fight against unethical practices in online games. Today, the studio has once again reiterated this commitment.
We are committed to continually improving our anti-fraud systems and strategies. We’ve added some improvements in our Mid-Season Update, and we’ll be releasing updates to fix cheats as they become available (rather than waiting for another big patch to ship).
Halo Infinite to fight cheaters on ranked leaderboards
One of the problems that new or lower level players face is already a common occurrence in the Halo franchise. Veterans and high-level players create new accounts to start the leaderboards all over again and have fun winning matches and humiliating new players who haven’t yet mastered the game controls.
Matchmaking systems don’t have a history of these new accounts, so they match them with players who may have never played Halo in their life. They then feel frustrated before they have learned to play and abandon the game. This is one of the axes of the studio, which will set a high minimum requirement to qualify for the playoffs.
One of the ways to add additional friction for people creating new accounts is to introduce the requirement to play a certain number of multiplayer matches before they can queue for qualifiers. We are currently planning to set this number to 25 games, although this may change before we activate it, as we believe this not only keeps the player off the leaderboard for a while, but also gives our other systems a chance to detect him as a current or repeat cheater. We hope this will also help new players find their place in the social playlists before jumping straight into the more difficult ranked experience.
This does two things: the first is to get new players used to playing in social play lists, and the second is a deterrent for veterans who want to cheat.