Online games have completely altered the world of gaming for good. Before multiplayer was a thing, gaming was just a hobby. However, the moment you introduced more people into the mix, allowing friends to face each other in games, everything changed.
Join us as we go over how cheating became a thing and cover some of the most popular games people play with cheats these days.
Why Do We Cheat?
Cheating is about as old as gaming itself. From the moment games became more complex than just Pong, people started looking for shortcuts. Back in the day of single-player games, cheats were often used as a reward for finished levels or complete games.It was a way for the devs to say ‘thank you’ for playing their game from start to finish. One notable case was Fallout 2. This often-overlooked installment of the Fallout series was arguably one of the best. Fallout 2 was a classic isometric RPG with a highly detailed storyline, awesome visuals, and great combat mechanics.
Passing the game and completing all the quests took both time and skill. However, those managed to do so would then be presented with the Book of Fallout. Now, this wasn’t exactly a cheat. It was a token of appreciation for the time and effort invested in the game.
The book, once read, would give the player max stats. It was basically the god mode in a game that was notoriously devoid of cheats or hacks.
Cheating Evolved
Cheating in single-player games was rarely frowned upon. Sure, there was the idea that you’re essentially showing a lack of skill, but you using cheats affected no one else but you. Things got rather interesting when multiplayer became a thing.First, it was the notorious split screen that broke friendships and caused siblings to fight each other. Cheating in split-screen games was possible but generally rarely used considering that the opponent was there, looking at what’s going on.
It’s when online gaming became a thing that cheats really started to evolve from the benign tool of fun to more malicious software.
Competitive Games and Cheats
Whenever you add the word competitive as a prefix to something, you’ll find people willing to do anything just to be ahead. The same happened with online gaming.Competitive games went from being a cool pastime for most to becoming a full-blown career for esports athletes as they are known today. As expected, adding money to the mix had only increased the number of cheaters as well as chests being used.
With that being said, it’s time to go over some of the most popular online games people cheat in!
1. CS:GO
Whenever anyone talks about cheating in online games, chances are they will mention CS:GO at some point. This is the quintessential game when it comes to cheating. In all honesty, that statement applies to all Counter Strike games, starting with the 1.1 and 1.3 back in the day.Being a 10v10, or more recently 5v5 competitive game, CS:GO has always attracted those looking for fame and glory. Being the top fragger brought you bragging rights among your group of friends, not to mention the wider CS:GO community.
Cheats in CS:GO started with the implementation of wall hacks and aimbots. Those were the two main types of cheats people used throughout the evolution of the Counter Strike franchise.
Ever since CS:GO became an eSport, more serious entities started focusing on cheating prevention and detection. This hasn’t really put a stop to aim-botting or wall hacking, but it did force cheat devs to push cheat design to a whole new level. Granted, some devs build cheats for entertainment purposes. For the lulz, right?
Modern cheats aren’t just beating Valve’s clunky anti-cheat, but they’re also dominating the LAN arena where all the computers are checked thoroughly, and every piece of hardware is scrutinized. Yet as KQLY and many other pros who got busted have shown us, everything’s possible with the right dev at your side.
What truly sets Apex Legends apart from the rest is the fact that it’s free. Although it’s packed with cool skins, there’s no pay to win in Apex. That is unless you count all of the Apex Legends hacks out there. Other than that, it’s all about skill. With each character bringing their own unique specialty to the table, you really have to choose your main and spend hours mastering the movement, strats, and more.
Cheating in Apex went through all of the steps, just like it did in CS. When the game first came out, it took Respawn - the studio behind the game - about a month to drop the ban hammer on more than 300.000 players.
Those first cheats were simple, free, and widely available. These days, that’s no longer the case. If you want to cheat in Apex Legends You need to be much more subtle and use more refined cheats.
Today, Call of Duty is a part of the gaming subculture. Activision, the team behind Call of Duty, was the latest development team to get into the whole free-to-play genre that is slowly becoming popular. The game they’ve released is called Call of Duty: Warzone and it’s known for two things right now - it’s insane 100gb disk space requirement and cheaters.
That being said, Activision was always fairly good at finding cheaters and getting them blacklisted. Most free cheats are quickly stomped out as it requires fairly serious coding to get around all the built-in safety features. Still, Warzone is just riddled with cheaters.
The only saving grace in this situation is the fact that so many people are playing this game at the moment, that your chances of actually running into a cheater are fairly small.
Love it or hate it, Fortnite was the most popular multiplayer game at one point in time. This cartoonish game did two things - it kept all the underage kids from causing havoc in other games, and it made the whole battle royale genre from its fairly modest roots into the mainstream.
Truth be told, Fortnite did this alongside a few other games such as PUBG. Knowing that the majority of players who play Fortnite are kids, it really isn’t too hard to imagine that many said kids would resort to cheating. In all honesty, that fact alone has made the anti-cheat’s job that much easier as counterintuitive as that sounds.
After all, sifting through tonnes of freeware cheats and hacks was nowhere nearly as difficult as it was searching for actual quality cheats. On the other hand, the sheer number of these freeware hacks did muddy the waters, causing a sort of background noise that could hide high-level hacks rather well.
Contrary to popular belief, Fortnite is still kicking and people are still cheating in it. There’s no going around it. Despite it being way past its prime, there are still thousands if not millions of players who log in every night in order to fight for that top position.
What makes PUBG so interesting in terms of cheats and cheating in general, is the fact that even the devs were caught doing it. There was a famous incident when a dev, who was also a live streamer at the time, got caught eliminating other players all while he had invisibility on.
Naturally, the dev played it off as a mere misunderstanding. See, he had the dev tools turned on by accident. Okay, maybe it was an accident but this moment happened while PUBG was literally riddled with all kinds of cheaters who used invisibility hacks, god mode hacks, and blatant aimbots.
PUBG was always considered to be a work in progress game. Just driving around the map could launch you unexpectedly into the air, or flip your vehicle causing you to die for no reason whatsoever. This was happening over a year after the game was launched.
Rockstar has pushed the limits with the GTA franchise. Allowing players to run over people, cause mayhem, and murder with impunity had launched the game into stardom. The series changed the world of gaming in more ways than one. The latest installment (yes, it’s 2020 and yes it’s still GTA 5), has added another dimension to the whole franchise - multiplayer.
See, up until the release of GTA 5, all the previous games were single-player only. For most, that was enough. However, it wasn’t enough for Rockstar who saw a new way to monetize their game.
As a result, they’ve introduced GTA 5 Online. Now, instead of running around a massive sandbox by yourself, you could go and complete missions and earn money with a whole server full of other players.
Cheats were always an integral part of a GTA experience. Everyone has had a moment where they would die one too many times, input a cheat, unlock all weapons and go to town on the local PD. After all, there was only one way to find out what happens when you rack up all the wanted stars.
GTA 5 Online was different in this regard. Not only was cheating not built into the game, but it was strictly prohibited. Rockstar didn’t want paying players to be pushed out of a server by a hacker. Yet, that’s exactly what’s going on around various servers.
God mode is a big cheat in this game. It’s difficult to trace and while it allows the user to destroy other players with immunity. Truth be told, Rockstar is working on solving this issue, but there is no chance they’ll manage to cover all the hacks that are circulating the web.
2. Apex Legends
Despite being a relatively new game, Apex Legends has taken the world like wildfire. It went from a small project devised under the watchful eye of EA, to becoming one of the most prolific competitive FPS multiplayer games available.What truly sets Apex Legends apart from the rest is the fact that it’s free. Although it’s packed with cool skins, there’s no pay to win in Apex. That is unless you count all of the Apex Legends hacks out there. Other than that, it’s all about skill. With each character bringing their own unique specialty to the table, you really have to choose your main and spend hours mastering the movement, strats, and more.
Cheating in Apex went through all of the steps, just like it did in CS. When the game first came out, it took Respawn - the studio behind the game - about a month to drop the ban hammer on more than 300.000 players.
Those first cheats were simple, free, and widely available. These days, that’s no longer the case. If you want to cheat in Apex Legends You need to be much more subtle and use more refined cheats.
3. Call of Duty: Warzone
Call of Duty games were among the OGs of the multiplayer era. Back in the day, CoD 2 was all the range with its awesome combat mechanics. From then on, it only got more popular and better in every way.Today, Call of Duty is a part of the gaming subculture. Activision, the team behind Call of Duty, was the latest development team to get into the whole free-to-play genre that is slowly becoming popular. The game they’ve released is called Call of Duty: Warzone and it’s known for two things right now - it’s insane 100gb disk space requirement and cheaters.
That being said, Activision was always fairly good at finding cheaters and getting them blacklisted. Most free cheats are quickly stomped out as it requires fairly serious coding to get around all the built-in safety features. Still, Warzone is just riddled with cheaters.
The only saving grace in this situation is the fact that so many people are playing this game at the moment, that your chances of actually running into a cheater are fairly small.
4. Fortnite
Truth be told, Fortnite did this alongside a few other games such as PUBG. Knowing that the majority of players who play Fortnite are kids, it really isn’t too hard to imagine that many said kids would resort to cheating. In all honesty, that fact alone has made the anti-cheat’s job that much easier as counterintuitive as that sounds.
After all, sifting through tonnes of freeware cheats and hacks was nowhere nearly as difficult as it was searching for actual quality cheats. On the other hand, the sheer number of these freeware hacks did muddy the waters, causing a sort of background noise that could hide high-level hacks rather well.
Contrary to popular belief, Fortnite is still kicking and people are still cheating in it. There’s no going around it. Despite it being way past its prime, there are still thousands if not millions of players who log in every night in order to fight for that top position.
5. PUBG
PUBG, just like Fortnite, has had a massive impact on the battle royale genre. Where ARMA 3 and other games introduce this type of gameplay through mods, PUBG took it and launched it into the stratosphere.What makes PUBG so interesting in terms of cheats and cheating in general, is the fact that even the devs were caught doing it. There was a famous incident when a dev, who was also a live streamer at the time, got caught eliminating other players all while he had invisibility on.
Naturally, the dev played it off as a mere misunderstanding. See, he had the dev tools turned on by accident. Okay, maybe it was an accident but this moment happened while PUBG was literally riddled with all kinds of cheaters who used invisibility hacks, god mode hacks, and blatant aimbots.
PUBG was always considered to be a work in progress game. Just driving around the map could launch you unexpectedly into the air, or flip your vehicle causing you to die for no reason whatsoever. This was happening over a year after the game was launched.
6. GTA 5 Online
Grand Theft Auto games are on a whole different level of uniqueness. Up until very recently, you couldn’t even find anything similar on the market. Older readers will probably remember GTA 1 and GTA 2 games, which were top-down view and extremely simple compared to what came after. Despite that, they were every bit as fun.Rockstar has pushed the limits with the GTA franchise. Allowing players to run over people, cause mayhem, and murder with impunity had launched the game into stardom. The series changed the world of gaming in more ways than one. The latest installment (yes, it’s 2020 and yes it’s still GTA 5), has added another dimension to the whole franchise - multiplayer.
See, up until the release of GTA 5, all the previous games were single-player only. For most, that was enough. However, it wasn’t enough for Rockstar who saw a new way to monetize their game.
As a result, they’ve introduced GTA 5 Online. Now, instead of running around a massive sandbox by yourself, you could go and complete missions and earn money with a whole server full of other players.
Cheats were always an integral part of a GTA experience. Everyone has had a moment where they would die one too many times, input a cheat, unlock all weapons and go to town on the local PD. After all, there was only one way to find out what happens when you rack up all the wanted stars.
GTA 5 Online was different in this regard. Not only was cheating not built into the game, but it was strictly prohibited. Rockstar didn’t want paying players to be pushed out of a server by a hacker. Yet, that’s exactly what’s going on around various servers.
God mode is a big cheat in this game. It’s difficult to trace and while it allows the user to destroy other players with immunity. Truth be told, Rockstar is working on solving this issue, but there is no chance they’ll manage to cover all the hacks that are circulating the web.
The Future of Cheating
The future of cheating pretty much looks the same as its past. Where there are games, there will be cheats. Game developers are working on new technologies to defeat existing cheats, but hackers are doing the same.
We often fail to remember that cheats are written by talented individuals who are in it for various reasons. Some are in it for fame, others for money. Either way, both sides are continuously one-upping each other.
One thing that could potentially put a dent into gaming cheats is the advent of AI-based anti-cheat software. Although far in the distant future, such high-tech solutions might be the only thing that is capable of putting a stop to cheating. You can download the IWantCheats HWID Changer and stay undetected while playing your favorite PC game.
The issue with anything AI-related is the fact that it’s nowhere near ready to be rolled out into mass service.
Another interesting question is how cheating will affect virtual reality games? Hardware is getting cheaper every year with some of the biggest players racing to release the newest, and cheapest goggles.
When the number of people playing virtual reality games reaches critical mass, chances are we’ll see some new forms of hacking.
Cheating is frowned upon although it’s an integral part of human nature. We’re programmed to look for ways to get ahead with the least amount of work necessary. In that regard, cheating is natural. However, there are consequences for cheating and everyone should be aware of them before they execute any cheat software.
