Developer Insight - Fair Play Task Force Update

We return once again with a long-awaited update from our Fair Play Task Force. We know how important these updates are to the community, and over the last few months our team has been heads down implementing some critical features, and given the sensitive nature of that work, the timing simply wasn't right to speak openly about it until now. But this changes today!

Anybrain Implementation

We are pleased to announce that we've partnered with Anybrain — an external solution that collects in-game inputs (mouse, keyboard and controller) and analyzes it to detect abnormal behaviors to figure out who is actively cheating either with hardware or software.

We decided to partner with Anybrain for two main reasons:

• Detecting mouse-and-keyboard players playing in a controller environment.
  
  • This is something that will be enforced as a bannable offence on consoles going forward.
    
  • So far, this effort has already resulted in 296 bans on consoles.
• Detecting aimbots and scripting on PC.
  
  • While we haven't reached the stage of issuing mass sanctions yet, this is a deliberate part of our rollout. We are currently refining our detection criteria on PC to ensure reaching a definitive verdict on bad actors while avoiding false positives.

To get ahead of any questions: Anybrain is not here to replace our team. It's here to empower them with the tools and accuracy that it brings. Our Customer Support team remains fully dedicated to identifying and actioning cheaters, and Anybrain works alongside them and Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC) to strengthen and sharpen that process.

Our detection tools are also fully GDPR-compliant. To put some wild theories to rest: we aren't training predictive social models, monitoring your mood, or harvesting personal data. The system is only focused on one thing: distinguishing between legitimate mouse/keyboard or controller inputs and fake, software-assisted ones.

The end-goal of this partnership is to make Hunt a fairer and more competitive environment for all players.

The EULA Update

​Some of you noticed the EULA update wasn't advertised ahead of the release. This was a strategic decision to maximize the impact on cheaters: we opted not to disclose it in advance for the "element of surprise" that prevented cheat users from pausing their software before our system went live. We understand this caused some frustration, and for that, we apologize, but it was a choice made in the best interest of the game's immediate health.

How We Detect Cheaters

We have also seen a lot of questions about how our detection and ban process works, so here's a transparent look at how it all comes together.

We work alongside Easy Anti-Cheat, which delivers automated ban waves whenever new or updated cheating software is detected, while our own dedicated Customer Support team rigorously reviews every community report and manually determines whether a ban is warranted. This manual step is intentional and very important.

This is what makes our partnership with Anybrain so valuable: combined with EAC, it gives our team sharper, more reliable data to work with, helping us act with both speed and confidence. The goal has always been the same: protect legitimate players and make absolutely sure we are banning the right ones, and not penalising skillful players making incredible shots.

Hunt: Showdown is a commercial product, and we recognize that issuing a ban revokes access to a game you have invested time and resources into. This is a responsibility we take seriously. Our team works to ensure we have a high degree of confidence that a player is in violation of our Terms of Service before any action is taken, balancing the need for a clean competitive environment with the rights of our players.

Since we recognize the potential for false positives in any complex detection ecosystem, we have a dedicated Appeals System in place, accessible through customer support on our website. If you believe a sanction has been applied to your account in error, you can submit a formal request for review. Every appeal triggers a comprehensive manual investigation by our Customer Support team, who will re-examine the data associated with the ban to ensure the correct decision was made.

Ping Abuse and Region-Based Limitations

We have noticed that cheating reports go hand in hand with reports about ping abusers, so we would like to give you an update on this topic as well.

Ping-based limitations are something we are committed to addressing. Right now, we are in the process of tackling substantial technical obstacles in the implementation of this system. The simple truth is, this feature was announced too early, when the very first experiments went live, and we had underestimated the complexity of the topic significantly. The system was not fit for purpose, and that is why it had to go back to the drawing board.

We know how important this feature is to the community, and it remains a priority. We should hopefully have an update for you soon.

Performance & CPU Usage

Lastly, we are aware that some players have been experiencing increased CPU usage since the launch of update 2.7. Our recently deployed fix has resolved the issue for many, but we know some of you are still affected.

We are continuing to investigate and work on a solution. We hope to have more information to share on this soon.

Conclusion

As always, we appreciate all of your feedback and input on all of the above. We are excited to give you more updates on all of those later in the year, and of course, we hope you are already noticing the impact of our newly implemented features.