nProtect GameGuard: Official answer from Arrowhead's Technical Director

[lukaself]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/19dp2qw/helldivers_2_nprotect_gameguard_anticheat/

Hi everyone,

My name is Peter Lindgren and I'm the Technical Director of HELLDIVERS 2. I've been making games at Arrowhead since the Magicka-days and I've been involved in every game we've released to date.

I will do my best in this post to address the concerns and confusion that's come up recently regarding the choice of Anti-Cheat software in HELLDIVERS 2.

So, let's start off with the more urgent questions:

Is GameGuard a kernel-level / administrator-priviledge anti-cheat?

Yes, GameGuard is a "kernel-level", aka rootkit, anti-cheat. Most anti-cheat run at "kernel-level", especially all of the popular ones. It's unfortunately one of the more effective ways to combat cheating.

There are some anti-cheat that can run in "user-mode", but they are much less effective and tend to be cracked very quickly, resulting in widespread cheating.

Will GameGuard stay installed on my system after I've uninstalled HELLDIVERS 2?

No, GameGuard is removed at the same time as the game is uninstalled.

The installer and uninstaller for GameGuard is visibly included with the game in <install-dir>/tools/GGSetup.exe and <install-dir>/tools/gguninst.exe.

I'm worried about my privacy, will GameGuard collect sensitive information about me?

No, GameGuard does not collect any personally identifiable information (PII). And doing so would be a GDPR/ADPPA nightmare as well. I can speak from experience that we're all bending over backwards to be compliant with these regulations.

On a more technical note, GameGuard is scanning the running processes (applications) for malicious software and attempts to block such software from manipulating the game client.

Will GameGuard reduce the performance of my PC?

GameGuard is only active while the game is running and after thousands of hours of testing we’ve not noticed any noteworthy degradations of performance on our developer and QA workstations.

And the big one that needs plenty of context:

HELLDIVERS 2 is a co-op/PvE game, why do we even need Anti-Cheat?

That's a great question, and there's two related but separate points to it:

First, we want everyone to have a great time playing HELLDIVERS 2, with friends, ex-friends or randoms. What we've seen in some of our and others' games is that rampant cheating tends to have a very negative effect on players openness to playing, especially with randoms.

There's an anecdote from HELLDIVERS 1 I'd like to share:

When we released HELLDIVERS 1 on PC there was effectively no anti-cheat implemented. Additionally HELLDIVERS 1 uses a peer-to-peer networking model, and that means, from a security perspective, each game client will blindly trust each other.

Shortly after release we noticed there was a cheat going around which granted 9999 research samples. Unfortunately any non-cheaters in the same mission would also be granted 9999 research samples. These non-cheating players now had their entire progression ruined through no fault of their own.

We were able to deal with a lot of these early issues without using a third party solution, but it took a lot of work, and most of it was done reactively.

Incidentally HELLDIVERS 2 also uses a peer-to-peer networking model, but this time around we're trying to be more proactive and make sure everyone can play the intended experience.

Second is the Galactic War. There's this huge metagame going in the cloud which all players (and game clients) participate in. Even though we have other countermeasures in place, a cracked game client could make it easier to disrupt the Galactic War, which would sour everyone’s experience.

As a final note, on an open platform like PC it's not possible to stop cheating from ever happening. Someone with the skills, dedication and resources will ultimately succeed. The point of anti-cheat is to make it more difficult and time consuming to develop cheats.

Needless to say we will be keeping a very close eye for any issues that may be encountered at release.

See you on the battlefield ;)

-Peter

[yobe]

Hard pass. Won't see you on this battlefield unfortunately.

[Aristedes]

Wah wah
Rootkit malware is a hard pass

[Archon]

Thanks for the clarification. looking forward to the game.

[Nate Mc Bow]

Originally posted by Archon:

Thanks for the clarification. looking forward to the game.

Good to see some people willing to not let their minds remain clouded by over dramatic bias. Ill see you on the battlefield Helldiver.

[Mr Darkly Beard]

This just reads like "everything will be fine, just trust us" to me. Still keeping that pre-order cancelled. I could barely tolerate something like EAC, but nProtect GameGuard has a shoddy reputation that i just don't feel comfortable with.

[Vivianite]

"The point of anti-cheat is to make it more difficult and time consuming to develop cheats. "

why did they feel the need to include this line, then turn around to assure that a 20 year old anti-cheat that has been proven to be bad at the task its been programmed for is going to work

and by bad i don't mean malicious, i mean easy to bypass bad.

[Alpharius Nox]

It would be nice if you gave us an option to install it or not, that way, for those of us who don't generally care that much about cheating in a PVE game, can play without this third party junk running on my PC at the same time.

Also, this makes me think that there will be no way to play the game offline.
Solo. Or via LAN play.

[Amaranth]

Originally posted by Alpharius:

It would be nice if you gave us an option to install it or not, that way, for those of us who don't generally care that much about cheating in a PVE game, can play without this third party junk running on my PC at the same time.

Also, this makes me think that there will be no way to play the game offline.
Solo. Or via LAN play.

That would defeat the point. Any cheater would just choose not to install it.

[Alpharius Nox]

Originally posted by Amaranth:

Originally posted by Alpharius:

It would be nice if you gave us an option to install it or not, that way, for those of us who don't generally care that much about cheating in a PVE game, can play without this third party junk running on my PC at the same time.

Also, this makes me think that there will be no way to play the game offline.
Solo. Or via LAN play.

That would defeat the point. Any cheater would just choose not to install it.

Yes, and you who care about cheaters can install it and not have cheaters.

[Amaranth]

Actually, installing it prevents ME from cheating. if I don't want cheaters in my game, the other players must install it. If I have it installed and the cheaters do not install it, they can still cheat and join my game.

[Alpharius Nox]

Most games with optional anti-cheats will place you in servers or match you with players who also don't have the anti-cheat installed. Or won't allow you to join certain servers that have the anti-cheat active, ARK Survival, Conan, most Bohemia Interactive games, for instance.

[punchobastardo]

I'm weeping reading that sincere statement. I especially like the 3-word assurance about "PII".

[Vox]

Originally posted by Arrowhead:

There's an anecdote from HELLDIVERS 1 I'd like to share:

When we released HELLDIVERS 1 on PC there was effectively no anti-cheat implemented. Additionally HELLDIVERS 1 uses a peer-to-peer networking model, and that means, from a security perspective, each game client will blindly trust each other.

Shortly after release we noticed there was a cheat going around which granted 9999 research samples. Unfortunately any non-cheaters in the same mission would also be granted 9999 research samples. These non-cheating players now had their entire progression ruined through no fault of their own.

Is there some specific reason that we couldn't, say, trust the client to reasonably deal with this situation? If a map can only spawn a dozen research samples, why does it have to be so dumb as to accept a server saying it had 9,999? If the maximum damage a player can do is X, why can't it pop up a notice to the player saying "hey, Teammate2's client just reported doing 10x the maximum possible damage. He's probably cheating."

Jumping directly to an invasive bit of unsecurable "trust me bro" kit, running in ring zero, that widely lacks community trust and is synonymous with shady Korean shovelware doesn't seem like a necessary - or very wise - decision.

. . . especially when we have recent and popular examples like DRG showing how unnecessary this approach is, and with his own admission that

Originally posted by Arrowhead:

. . . on an open platform like PC it's not possible to stop cheating from ever happening. Someone with the skills, dedication and resources will ultimately succeed.

Just make the client less dumb. No need to violate the security of every single player to make it slightly harder to develop cheats.

[DudeBro69]

Nope

There are other anti cheats that don't start on computer bootup.

This dev reply is damage control.

[Venirto]

Originally posted by Nate Mc Bow:

Originally posted by Archon:

Thanks for the clarification. looking forward to the game.

Good to see some people willing to not let their minds remain clouded by over dramatic bias. Ill see you on the battlefield Helldiver.

Yeah, tell that to hundreths of people who have technical issues with GameGuard in PSO2 or those who experience hard crashes and blue-screens in UWO. GameGuard is infamous not without a reason and people have full right to be upset about its presence in this game.