343 has addressed the current state of cheating in Halo Infinite. In a thread of tweets, community manager John Junyszek explained that the developer had 'anticipated' the issue in the game and that it was 'committed' to taking action against offenders.
"Let's talk about cheating," says Junyszek in his original tweet. "Unfortunately, cheating is a natural part of supporting a F2P PC game and it's one we anticipated. It'll never go away entirely, but we're prepared and committed to releasing consistent improvements to our game’s systems and taking action on bad actors."
While the phrase "releasing consistent improvements to our game's systems," is rather vague, Junyszek was quick to address this in a follow-up explaining what appears to be a multifaceted approach to combating cheating in the game.
"Jumping in to clarify that the wording of "improvements to game's systems" includes not only our anti-cheat, but the rest of the game as well," says Junyszek. "It's worded this way because we don't take a "single feature" approach, but a game-wide approach to anti-cheat."
Reports of cheating in the game began to heavily crop up on social media across the weekend where videos of hackers using a range of cheats were posted by players frustrated at the game. However, the issues don't stop there. While 343 looks to combat those breaking the rules, the tactics deployed by those cheating are making it harder for players to provide evidence against them – with some fans on social media claiming that hackers are blocking Theater mode replays in order to stop video-based reports of cheating.
Currently, players on PC and console joining standard matches in the game are grouped together. While cheats can be found and implemented in FPS games by console players, they tend to be more prevalent on PC. Due to this factor, earlier this week there were calls from many frustrated Xbox fans on social media asking for 343 to introduce a crossplay toggle that would allow them more freedom over who they enter matches against.
While cheating in the game is certainly an issue that 343 will be looking to minimize as soon as possible, it currently isn't the only problem that the developer is looking to address. Earlier this week, the studio's Head of Design Jerry Hook explained to fans on Twitter that the team would be looking to further tweak the game's controversial progression system, and more changes went into effect yesterday. With a number of changes set to take place to the game, fans will likely be hoping to see some improvements before Infinite launches proper on December 8.
For more on Halo Infinite, make sure to check out this article detailing how the game's multiplayer mode will add more weapons over time.
Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.