Since Blizzard’s Overwatch had first launched back three years ago, cheaters have been massive problem. For players going against them, to the developers trying to deal with them, to the cheaters putting a bad name to a lot of hero shooters. Since cheating has become such a problematic thing in the Overwatch community, Blizzard has been hard at work for figuring out new and effective ways to deal with them. And in the July 2019 Developer Update, Jeff Kaplan came forth with the new evolution of their cheat detection software.
This cheat detection software will instantly shut down a match if cheating is detected. Meaning that the moment that someone toggles on their own cheating software, whether it be auto-lock, auto-trigger, wall hacks, and anything else that might be considered third-party software, the match will end. The cheater can expect “very harsh actions” against them, which might go beyond the normal ban. But these are just speculations as Jeff Kaplan never specified what the “harsh actions” are.
For players in the match with the cheater, no il-will will come to them. Regular players won’t receive any penalties to their account, nor to their SR (Skill Rating) in competitive. The only actual “penalization” will be the match shutting down, which players will just have to requeue to get into a new match without any cheaters. Kaplan is hoping that the new system will be able to deter cheaters from coming in as they won’t be able to complete a match, and won’t be able to go through with attempting to get themselves to where they want to be through unfair play.
Along with the new anti-cheating system, Kaplan brings up the Summer Event that is arriving sooner than expected. And a new implementation distribution of the epic skins and how they can be unlocked. Prior, players could only get new cosmetic items either through the loot box luck, or if they had enough in-game currency to purchase it. Now, for each of the three weeks that the event is live, there will be mini-challenges to obtain a skin. Which, is something new and will most likely see a positive response.
And, as for Hero 31, Kaplan does mention him, but does not specify who it might be. With Kaplan using the he/him pronouns, there are two possible options for the upcoming hero. The first being the mysterious omnic that showed up at the end of the “Storm Rising” event animation, or it could be Mauga, the Heavy Assault Unit character from the recent Baptiste short story “What You Left Behind”. Kaplan states the character won’t be ready just yet, as they’re working on him to make him “extra awesome.”
There is no current date on when these changes will be put through.