Fall Guys Devs Created Cheaters-Only Servers

The Fall Guys developers created servers that only pitted cheaters against cheaters on what was known as Cheater Island. With virtually any PC game, the opportunity for people to cheat is there. Developers like that of Fall Guys, Mediatonic, hope that cheaters grow to see how cheating ruins the fun but when that didn't happen, they took matters into their own hands. Today, the official Twitter account recounted the story of how Cheater Island came to be.

I've got lots of spicy content for you this week - The Dev team have been super busy on the new update

For now... BUCKLE UP Let me tell you a wild story It's called The RISE and FALL of Cheater Island Tagging @Netflix incase they want to make a film or series out of it — Fall Guys (@FallGuysGame) September 14, 2020

  "For now...BUCKLE UP," the first tweet in a 21-tweet thread reads. "Let me tell you a wild story. It's called The RISE and FALL of Cheater Island." The tweet also tagged the official Netflix Twitter "in case they want to make a film or series out of it" and after reading the story, we hope Netflix jumps on the opportunity. Mediatonic had its own cheat detection built into Fall Guys at the game's launch but they weren't banning anyone that cheated — just gathering data on the cheating as the studio wanted to be 100% sure that the cheat detection was only catching people who were legitimately cheating. After confirming that this detection worked, the studio launched "Fall Guys Cheater Island ™," which was a "magical place where cheaters could happily compete against themselves for the Cheater's Crown." This crown was just a normal crown stained with a hollow feeling of guilt and regret, one of the tweets reads. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=every-fall-guys-minigame-ranked&captions=true"] Because Mediatonic was only collecting data on cheaters at this point, the island's population was zero. That's when the studio lowered the threshold for cheating, after realizing their original threshold was too tolerant. "Cheaters would get caught...but not be insta-banished," a tweet reads. "We hoped that they might realize cheating kills the fun." As you'd expect, the cheating continued and so Mediatonic lowered the threshold once more. After that, if you cheated, you would be allowed to finish your game before you were dumped into matchmaking servers that only other cheaters were in. In these servers, you'd only be able to matchmake with other cheaters. Together, these servers were known as Cheater Island. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/08/06/fall-guys-ultimate-knockout-review"] "Now, if you can imagine: You need 40+ players to actually populate a game," one of the thread's tweets reads. "Cheater Island isn't a location in the real world...Cheater Island had its own set of global servers. You'd need enough cheaters in your region in order to start a Cheater Island game." It became a race against time at this point because every day that Mediatonic waited for cheaters to populate the island was another day that cheaters had to find workarounds to the studio's cheat detection, so the threshold was lowered again. Then, it happened. "There were finally enough cheaters to actually matchmake and create Cheater Island matches," a tweet reads. People began to upload videos of what appeared to be Cheater Island but Mediatonic said that while it knew Cheater Island matches were happening, it couldn't say whether or not the videos were that of matches on Cheater Island. You can check out one of those videos below.

Here's another video that we think is Cheater Island

The person recording isn't cheating... Either they didn't cheat, just for the video... Or it's a genuine server and a legit player... Either way, it makes the game look bad pic.twitter.com/wxTyIA9Urr — Fall Guys (@FallGuysGame) September 14, 2020

  Mediatonic said that while it knew for certain Cheater Island matches were taking place, it couldn't say for sure if those videos were Cheater Island so it closed the island for good. Instead of being sent to Cheater Island, cheaters just won't be able to login to the game. "Our cheat detection system was good...but we hadn't expected so may players...and we had no idea the lengths that some players would go to cheat," a tweet reads. "We tried to create a system around 'Honesty'...but as soon as we realized we were in an ARMS RACE, we called up the experts at Epic." The next Fall Guys update will be called Big Yeetus and the Anti-Cheatus. Mediatonic says we'll learn later what the Big Yeetus part means but the Anti-Cheatus part represents the addition of Epic's Anti-Cheat to the game. Cheaters beware. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/08/27/fall-guys-season-2-sneak-peek-trailer"] If you're trying to play Fall Guys honestly, read out essential tips to survive every round and then check out 18 crucial tips and tricks to help you win. For more Fall Guys, check out these details about Fall Guys' medieval-themed Season 2 and then check out our ranking of the Fall Guys minigames. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Wesley LeBlanc is a freelance news writer and guide maker for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @LeBlancWes.