As the fight against cheaters in multiplayer games continues, developers are finding new ways to punish cheaters. Accordingly, Valve has started turning cheaters into frogs for Deadlock, which is still in development.
Valve turns cheaters into frogs with Deadlock
Instead of banning accounts altogether, Valve is introducing new penalties to deter cheating in games. Called “The Cheater’s Lament,” this character takes the form of a frog with glasses and a hat. Cheaters transformed in this way are forced to wander the maps.
According to a former Valve developer, the company tested a similar method in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. In this method, cheaters were transformed into chickens. While not fully implemented for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, it shows that Valve has long been looking for unusual ways to deal with cheaters.
Previously, Call of Duty: Warzone also took creative measures. Cheaters experienced hallucinations that distorted their vision and bugs that disabled their parachutes when landing on maps. This caused cheaters to crash land.
Fall Guys developer Mediatonic is taking a more standardized approach and rounding up cheaters. Players caught cheating are sent to a “cheater island” where they can only compete against each other.
It’s also worth noting that Deadlock is growing rapidly. Valve has warned that Deadlock is still in the early stages of development and that players may encounter temporary graphics and experimental gameplay. However, this warning has not dampened player interest. According to Steam data, it has reached 106,000 concurrent players in the past 24 hours.