Fall Guys studio is aware of cheaters and hopes to have a fix 'soon'

News
By published

Who would cheat to win a goofy multiplayer party game? Lots of people, as it turns out.

(Image credit: Mediatonic)

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout is a big success. Publisher Devolver Digital said over the weekend that Fall Guys is its biggest launch ever, and right at this moment it's more popular than Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, GTA5, League of Legends, Fortnite, Minecraft, and every other game on Twitch.

But just as with so many other popular online games, success brings headaches in the form of cheaters. Unhappy players have been complaining about cheating on Twitter, Reddit, Steam, and beyond, and as you can see in some of the embedded videos, it looks like it hasn't taken long for misbehavior to find a foothold in this cheerful competition.

Why would you cheat in this game? from r/FallGuysGame

It's not clear what sort of anti-cheat system Fall Guys has, and there may not be one in place at all: The game doesn't have a built-in reporting feature so players who encounter cheaters are encouraged to report them on the Fall Guys Discord. Developers aren't responding to individual messages as far as I can tell (I'm in the "Report Hackers" channel now, and there are a lot of complaints coming in) but Mediatonic is aware of the problems and told Polygon that it hopes to have some sort of fix in place soon.

Winning matches earns crowns that can be spent on cosmetic items, and we all know how much people love unlocking in-game status symbols. In that light it's arguable that Mediatonic should've been better prepared for this, but then again there's not much of a playbook on anti-cheat for whimsical multiplayer platformers.

For one thing, cosmetics notwithstanding, Fall Guys doesn't strike me as the sort of game that would attract the cheating crowd the way that games like Fortnite or Apex Legends do. It's a cute, goofy party game—the fun is in the bumbling. But even more important, I don't think even the most optimistic among the development team could have reasonably predicted that Fall Guys would achieve this level of popularity so immediately. 

I've reached out to Devolver and Mediatonic to ask about a possible timeline on addressing cheats, and will update if I receive a reply.

Andy Chalk
Andy Chalk
US News Lead

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.