These days, cheaters and hackers find ways to ruin just about any game that connects to the internet, and so Elden Ring is being proactive by being the first FromSoftware game to use Easy Anti-Cheat. With any luck, that will keep what is likely already a pretty difficult game from becoming a headache. At the very least, it should hopefully keep everything a bit fairer.
Hacking has long been an issue in the Dark Souls community, with some bad actors using hacks to gain an unfair advantage when invading others gamers’ worlds. Obviously, being invaded is stressful enough without the other player being unkillable or doing an impossibly high amount of damage. Not to mention that hacking can also result in some truly malicious activity, like the recent exploit that is so concerning that FromSoftware disabled the multiplayer servers for every Dark Souls game while they work on a fix. With problems like this already plaguing its games, it makes sense that FromSoftware would want to do everything it could to shore up Elden Ring’s defenses to keep the same from happening with its newest title.
A report from WCCFTech alleges that the game will use Easy Anti-Cheat, marking the first time a FromSoftware game will ship with any kind of anti-cheating software. The report pulls this info from the game’s End User License Agreement, where a section about third-party software specifically mentions Easy Anti-Cheat by name. The EULA says that Easy Anti-Cheat will automatically download, install, and run its latest version whenever fans start Elden Ring, after which the software will do its job and report cheating activity to FromSoftware so the company can ban any would-be cheaters. Whether or not this will actually function as intended will have to be seen after the game launches.
There’s also the question of how this software might affect Elden Ring’s performance or how players will receive this news. While in theory anti-cheating software should be a net positive, some players take issue with it on the grounds that it can slow down a game. Just a short time ago fans were complaining about Deathloop, claiming that the game’s performance suffered because of its use of Denuvo anti-cheating software. If gamers find similar hiccups in Elden Ring, they may turn against the use of Easy Anti-Cheat, even if it’s supposed to help make the game better. There’s a give and take there, and fans will just have to hope that the game runs well even with the addition of this extra software.
Elden Ring is less than a month from release, and the eagerly-anticipated title is looking to set itself apart from FromSoftware’s previous games in quite a few ways. The game’s director has promised that Elden Ring will be less stressful than its predecessors. Theoretically, the use of Easy Anti-Cheat should help ensure that other players aren't making the games harder than they should be.
Source: WCCFTech