Developers of the new boxing game Undisputed are currently dealing with hackers plaguing online matchmaking.
As a lifelong PC gamer, I’ve experienced my fair share of hackers and toxicity online. Usually, hackers try to hide their cheats to prevent themselves from being banned, even when the result is still the most blatant thing you’ve ever seen.
Typically, at least in my experience, cheaters are more prevalent in FPS games, as it’s usually the easiest to obscure hacks in shooters. But, in actuality, these shameless losers infest every corner of gaming, including strategy games, as indicated by the innumerable map hackers I went up against as I climbed the competitive ladder in Starcraft 2.
Cheating in a Fighting Game?
I’m not sure I should even call Undisputed a fighting game, as it’s more of a realistic boxing simulation about fighting than it is an actual “fighting game.” A departure from classic arcade-style fighting games like Street Fighter or Tekken, Undisputed does its best at replicating the real-life boxers that grace the roster of the game.
So far, the hacking actually hasn’t been too terrible for me personally. Out of the 75+ ranked matches I’ve participated in, I’ve only run into 2 total hackers. One of which was super blatant, which you can watch on our Youtube channel (and which we originally mistook as a rouge developer), and the other — who did a much better job at obfuscating their nefarious deed.
The problem therein lies — the latter player — who would just reset their damage back to 0 at the end of each round. As I played against this boxing Superman, my power hooks and uppercuts did nothing to him round after round, as he absorbed them and laughed in my face, not blocking or even throwing a punch.
See, the problem in Undisputed is that you can’t see your opponent’s health bar. So where in a game like Street Fighter or Tekken, an immortal fighter would be super obvious, in a realistic game like Undisputed, not so much so — especially if you’re new to the game.
And so, while it would seem that in a fighting game, cheating would be blatant, it may not be so in a game like Undisputed, where hackers can just turn on one-punch KO power or have unlimited stamina and health. This is where the primary problem lies, especially as you get higher up in skill level and the margin for error reduces to a hair.
Steel City Interactive is Banning Offenders
While it could seem a problem like this could throw Undisputed into dire straights, developers of the game, Steel City Interactive, are aware of the problem and touched on the issue of cheating in their latest patch update. Along with a recent ban wave, the team plans on implementing more stringent/better anti-cheat measures, which should hopefully dissuade players from cheating.
And I’m not the only one with the issue, either, as indicated by the many posts found on the Undisputed subreddit and within the comments section of multiple posts.
In a game where wearing down your opponent and formulating a game plan is the crux of the fun for many boxing fans and aficionados, an unfair advantage akin to stuffing your gloves with concrete can ruin the fun and cause a rage-induced moment of controller smashing.
However — this all being said, while hackers may ruin the game when you encounter one, hopefully, those moments are few and far between. Hopefully, Steel City Interactive controls the hacker and cheater problem before it drives away the game’s core audience.
What’s your thought on the hacker/cheater problem in Undisputed? Let us know in the comments section.
For more news like this, see our News Section.
