Blizzard has revealed “the next evolution” of cheat detection in its hero shooter Overwatch.
In a developer update, game director Jeff Kaplan said Overwatch will automatically shut down a match where Blizzard has detected cheating is happening.
Kaplan insisted no player on either side of the match will be penalised for the match being shut down (except the cheater, of course), so if you’re in a competitive match you don’t have to worry about losing SR (Skill Rating).
As for the cheater, Kaplan said they can expect “very harsh actions”.
“We think this is the next evolution of cheat detection in the game, which is pretty awesome,” Kaplan said.
Kaplan didn’t go into detail on how Blizzard detects cheaters, nor reveal the “very harsh actions” it’ll dish out to naughty players, but you’d expect him to keep his cards close to his chest in a bid to avoid giving cheaters the information they need to combat Blizzard’s new system. The hope is, of course, that Blizzard’s cheater detection is so robust it puts cheaters off, since they won’t get to complete a match under the new system.
Developer Update | July 2019 Update | Overwatch Watch on YouTube
Meanwhile, Kaplan also talked about the upcoming Overwatch summer games event, which is due sooner than expected. Also, for each of the three weeks the event is live, there will be a mini-challenge to unlock an epic skin, which makes for a change in the way Blizzard distributes skins during the summer games event.