Fall Guys Introducing New Anti-Cheat System, Retiring Cheater Island

Mediatonic, the good people behind runaway hit Fall Guys, will be shaking things up a bit in the upcoming “Big Yeetus and Anti-Cheatus” update. Specifically, they’ll be changing how they handle cheaters, as the name of the update clearly points out. Their old method, while certainly funnier and more clever, has some holes that need plugging. Plus, out of context, it makes Fall Guys look bad.

The history of anti-cheat measures in Fall Guys is more interesting than you might have imagined. The developers lay it all out in a surprisingly engaging series of tweets. Basically, the first step was to develop a system that’s going to automatically flag cheaters, and quietly so. Then, once they tweaked the detection to make sure no false flags were coming through, it was time for Phase Two: Cheater Island.

The idea was to send all the naughty players into matchmaking with each other, resulting in “a magical place where cheaters could happily compete against themselves for the Cheater’s Crown.” However, they ran into a problem: for the longest time, they couldn’t get enough rule-breakers at the same time in order to populate a full game. So, instead, they just left them on the “falling” screen for eternity. Yes, those complaining about getting stuck in matchmaking as of late were basically outing themselves as cheaters.

Eventually, though, they did manage to populate the island fully, and the results are glorious. Every round is over in mere seconds, with players zipping towards the goal like iron shavings to a magnet. It’s both funny and pitiful, if you know the context. Therein lies the problem, however. If you see those videos out of context, you can only conclude that Fall Guys is a game of nothing but hackers. As the devs put it: “Our cheat detection system was good, but we hadn’t expected so many players… and we had no idea the lengths that some players would go to cheat.”

So, it’s time for change, and Cheater Island is a thing of the past. As a replacement, they’ll be introducing Epic’s anti-cheat system in the “Big Yeetus and Anti-Cheatus” update. That’s definitely way less sarcastic and spicy a solution, but I do understand the logic behind the decision. At least we still have the videos of Cheater Island to look back on.

So, that covers the Anti-Cheatus portion. What about the Bug Yeetus, though? Well, apparently, that’s a large, spinning hammer that’s going to appear randomly. Depending on how it hits you and which way it turns, it can either propel you forward to victory, or send you careening to your doom. Nothing I love more than high risk – high reward plays. Even if you fail, at least it’s hilarious.