Tarkov’s Anti-Cheat Diary is Interesting

(Intro)

We all know that the battle against cheaters across video games is a never ending one. As developers figure out workarounds and solutions to whatever iteration of cheating software is currently out on the market, the creators of the cheats come up with a new version that circumvents all the effort going into the fight. It’s a game about trying to be close behind as the cheaters are usually one step ahead. And this is no more apparent than in Tarkov. It’s been an ongoing issue for a very long time. Since the start of the early alpha days, but ever more apparent as the game’s popularity grew over time. And recently, the developers put out a full diary blog post specifically talking about cheating in EFT and how they are going to approach it this year. Some new backend solutions, debunking some myths surrounding cheating and just overall a what seems to be very open and honest conversation about this issue that plagues the industry as a whole. Which is something I would request more of from the team; this level of openness and just talking about how they want to try and combat this and other issues would be very much appreciated going forward. But let’s review the developer’s diary and see what they have to say about cheating and if their efforts will bear any fruit. They’ll never be able to solve cheating, but the less impact it has across the game, the better.

(General myth busting)

The first chunk of the blog is going over some myths surrounding Tarkov and how it deals with cheaters as a whole. Trying to at least set the record straight with their philosophy against cheating and some of the other issues that come with trying to tackle this monumental task. For a long time, the developers would actually post ban waves online with a viewable list of all the accounts that were banned. Which on one hand was interesting to look at to see the names and other basic information about the account, but more felt like either a moment to brag about getting cheaters banned, which didn’t make sense because the fight never ends, or an opportunity to at least show the community that they are indeed trying as hard as they can. For example, they explain that ban waves for cheaters are not very frequent. Bans happen almost daily, and those lists are more of an aggregated way of seeing how many they’ve gotten rid of between each list. Reporting cheaters in games is still the best way to get their attention by looking at the account in question. Another major priority surrounding cheating is the safety of your accounts. It’s gotten to the point that sometimes, you cannot tell if an account is legitimate or not by glancing at the in-game stats. What used to be super obvious stats that didn’t make sense for how long the account has existed, has basically blended into any account could be fraudulent sadly. Apparently, there are way more cases of accounts being taken and then sold elsewhere for cheap, which honestly after reading that doesn’t surprise me too much. Again, cheating isn't just to have an advantage in a video game anymore; it’s a full-blown industry, as much as it hurts me to say that. So, people selling clean accounts to cheaters just makes it all the more nasty to me. Having things like two factor authentication is important in this day and age; it’s just another barrier to prevent your own account from getting taken too.

They also touched on the notion of ‘my account was falsely banned and ignored’. And this is probably the only part of the entire blog I have some level of skepticism, because for anyone who has dealt with support over at battle state, you know it’s pretty much non-existent. If you get banned, there is almost nothing you can do to try and appeal it or fight back. And to me, having poor or non-existent customer support and other services is the most egregious and disrespectful thing you can do as a company. Maybe I’m lucky, but the number of times I have reached out tons of different support pages and talked to someone via the online chat and had pleasant conversations has blown my mind. Almost all of my interactions have been pleasant so anything less than that these days would immediately make me not want to do business with you. And this game has failed in that regard for a long time. A lot of people also say why doesn’t battle state sue the cheat developers? And the answer is because it’s more complicated than we all think, more expensive, and more time consuming than it’s worth sometimes. They only take legal action when and where it’s possible. Taking down advertising for these cheat websites and the like is easier to do and can hit their bottom line more efficiently than trying to go for the jugular in court. Which I can understand; legal action of any kind is such a process; and every country has different ways of going about it. And since Tarkov is an international product, there isn’t a one size fits all solution when it comes to legal action. And while according to them, there are lots of third-party companies coming into the fray with potential solutions to the problem, battle state doesn’t want to compromise their legit players by having them give personal data to promote their product or company.

All of this to say that battle state is more aware of how problematic and complicated this issue is than I once gave them credit for. Again, it isn’t about eliminating all cheaters because at this point, that’s impossible sadly. The goal is to limit the damage they do as much as possible, which feels both more of a reasonable ask from battle state and also something I can see them actually being successful with. Will they actually make good on these conversations and make changes that benefit the community as a whole? Only time will tell. And they go in detail over what their plans are for the year ahead.

(Planning ahead for 2026)

The first and major potential addition to the game is the implantation of TPM 2.0 and secure boot in order to launch the game. Which honestly, considering that more games are requiring this in order to play online, this seems like the next natural step, even if it’s to the chagrin of many players. They even acknowledge that forcing this on players has created quite a lot of backlash with other titles, as well as the unfortunate circumstance that not all computers support it. The also want to include the use of VBS/IOMMU/HVCI which I’ll be brutally honest, I have absolutely no idea what this regarding computers and its effect on combating cheaters in video games, but a quick google search would explain that in laymen's terms ways that your computer at the kernel level can identify that your hardware is legitimate, and protecting those critical systems from any malpractice. Again, this is a very simplified explanation, and I still don’t think I said it right, but it’s another layer of insulation potentially for players that prevents deeper levels of cheats from working in the game. Of course, new and more accurate ways of detection are always on the table and being implemented as they are ready, which is always a good thing. Even if we can’t get rid of them, being more precise will at the very least give people peace of mind that someone they report will be gone eventually. And something I didn’t think they would try and tackle is better rewards and compensation for dying to a cheater. Now to their credit, they straight up say they can’t give kits back to players. They do not explain exactly why, but I would have to guess it’s the lack of infrastructure to pull this off and would most likely break the game trying to get it right. But slowly increasing the money given to those who report cheaters is at least something. Cause right now, I can’t remember off the top of my head the number of rubles we get when a report goes through, but it’s not much. Obviously, they don’t want to make it crazy because then people will just mass report accounts to try and get one compensation package, but slowly increasing the amount given would at the very least be something to look forward to. Finally, they wrap up the post thanking everyone and repeating they are committed to this fight and making the game a healthier place with less cheaters. Now, with all that posted and available for people to read, the biggest question is, can they deliver this set of features and adjustments to a quality where we can tangibly feel it whenever we boot the game up?

(Will it work?)

For how critical it is for battle state to nail these additions towards making the game less cheater heavy, my hope is that they can get whatever they need to in the game so that we simply experience less cheaters. Both the obvious ones and the not so obvious ones. But if it comes at the cost of deeper computer integration, and more importantly performance hits across the board, it doesn’t seem worth it to me. Maybe a stupid take, but with how many games suffer from cheaters, again just mitigating their damage is more than enough. This is generally a topic I wish I was more educated on, but the fact of the matter is that this problem isn’t someone who got upset they died and lost their gear. It's a business; an industry where people make their livelihoods of selling cheats and working with third party websites and programs to sell more cheats. And taking that goliath down isn’t something battle state or any singular company can accomplish. We sadly, would most likely need regulations and effort from governments to step in and assist with taking down these businesses. But obviously, priorities are in many different places right now. Will we ever live to see multiplayer games with no cheaters? Probably not. But the thought is just tantalizing enough to keep playing and hoping eventually we see something close to it.

(Outro)

Cheating has become a major problem in 2026 for video games. And Tarkov is no exception. Luckily, it seems like there is a level of transparency from battle state where they want to improve things and are trying to lay out the groundwork for future patches to focus more on the backend of the game and trying their best to minimize this problem as much as they possibly can. It’s a never-ending fight; and most people know this. Most people know that you’re just going to die to a cheater every now and again, and that you can’t get too upset at it because so many games suffer the same fate. But if battle state can get some of these features added, maybe just maybe, we might be able to play a version of Tarkov where cheaters are just a little less prevalent. And to me, there is nothing sweeter than that vision. Thank you very much for taking the time out of your day to watch this video. Let me know down in the comment section below your thoughts on this blog post, if you think they can pull it off, if you like this level of communication form them and be sure to subscribe for more videos about diving into posts and blogs from developers that are fighting every day to make their game better, but people outside of their control are constantly ruining it. I hope to see you in future ones.