Cover-Credits:
Electronic Arts (EA) just announced a brand-new anti-cheat program that is being produced in-house by EA’s Game Security & Anti-Cheat team. The new EA AntiCheat (EAAC) will release with FIFA 23 on 27th September and will be implemented in other projects as well.
Apex Legends has suffered from various issues over the years involving cheaters and hackers. Players were able to shut down the game completely last year and there are infamous cheaters like “Tufi” who ruined high-level ranked play for months. Easy Anti-Cheat, which is the currently used anti-cheat solution, has been ineffective at dealing with issues at times and the new anti-cheat being added to the game could potentially ease some of the problems faced by players.
EA explains why a kernel-level anti-cheat is necessary
For games that are highly competitive and contain many online modes like FIFA 23, kernel-mode protection is absolutely vital, according to a recent blog post by EA. The publisher revealed, “When cheat programs operate in kernel space, they can make their cheat functionally invisible to anti-cheat solutions that live in user-mode. Unfortunately, the last few years have seen a large increase in cheats and cheat techniques operating in kernel-mode, so the only reliable way to detect and block these is to have our anti-cheat operate there as well.”
EA clarified that the anti-cheat would be implemented in its competitive games only. EAAC will not be added to single-player-only titles, or titles without competitive ladders or leaderboards. Depending on the title and type of game, EA may implement only select EAAC features like user-mode protections, or even forgo leveraging anticheat technology altogether. Instead it will design the game to be resilient against certain types of cheats.
Unlike some anti-cheat programs that run 24x7, EAAC only runs when a game with EAAC protection is running. All anti-cheat processes shut down when the game does. The game will also automatically uninstall EAAC when all games that use EAAC are removed from a system. Personal data will be inaccessible by the anti-cheat and it will monitor only game files that are associated with EA’s competitive games.
With Warzone and Valorant both seeing success with home-grown anti-cheat programs instead of third-party services, Apex Legends may also see some improvements. EA has not confirmed which games, aside from FIFA 23, will be receiving the new anti-cheat but its popular battle royale is definitely a prime candidate.
