Being an online free-to-play game, Hyper Scape will always need an effective anti-cheat solution to safeguard the clean players from the dirty ones.
Speaking with SegmentNext in a recent interview, creative director Jean-Christophe Guyot stated that Ubisoft takes anti-cheating very seriously. The developer wants to assure the player-base that the anti-cheat of Hyper Scape is subject to constant updates in order to adapt to new hacks or cheat programs.
Since the start of the open beta, Hyper Scape now issues hardware bans to any player caught cheating in addition to banning their Ubisoft account. Hence, a banned player will not be able to return by just creating another account. The only way for the player to return in Hyper Scape would be to change their PC hardware, which while doable is pretty difficult on a large scale.
Guyot also confirmed that an in-game reporting feature is currently in the works and when deployed, players will be able to report suspicious gameplay. Ubisoft will continue to evolve the anti-cheat of Hyper Scape in the future so that the virtual city of Neo Arcadia remains fair.
Anti-Cheating is a very important topic for us, and as such we are constantly monitoring and adapting our systems. Hardware bans are part of our sanctions and have already been used during the beta. We also plan to add player reporting tools in the future and will continue improve our cheat detection as we move forward.
Hyper Scape uses BattlEye for an anti-cheat, which Ubisoft is also using for Rainbow Six Siege and Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint. Other games that are currently using BattlEye include Fortnite and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.
It cannot be stressed enough how a good anti-cheat can make or break a game. Call of Duty: Warzone can be taken as a prime and most recent example. Being also free to play but with an atrocious anti-cheat system, hackers and cheaters have more or less taken the game hostage. For the past several months, it was a miracle to play two or three consecutive matches without coming across a wall-hacker or aim-botter. That bleak situation of Warzone remains to this day.
Hyper Scape is available on PC in open beta right now. Guyot noted that the free-to-play battle royale will drop for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One “later this summer,” which will also be when the first seasonal content goes live for all platforms.
Hyper Scape will also be available day-one on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. Though, Ubisoft will be releasing the same current-generation version of the game on the upcoming consoles. Any next-generation-specific enhancements such as improved frame-rate will come somewhere down the road.
