AH statement on anticheat.

[ForeverAPeon]

Here's a message from Arrowhead's Technical Director:

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


Frequently Asked Questions about anti-cheat:
We collected responses from Reddit, Discord, and elsewhere and have compiled our answers here.

Q. Isn't using anti-cheat just to protect the game's monetization structure?
A. Yes, and no. While it will protect monetized content, our primary purpose in using it is to protect the social aspect of the Galactic War gameplay and preserve player experience.

Q. Does using nProtect GameGuard impact PC performance?
A. We have not seen a measurable impact on performance in our tests with GameGuard.

Q. Why did you choose nProtect GameGuard over other anti-cheats available?
A. We investigated feature sets in many of them, and GameGuard met our needs in preventing cheating in the Galactic War.

Q. Is nProtect GameGuard a security risk? i.e. Will it override security functions, create a backdoor into my firewall, allow malicious software such as keyloggers, etc.?
A. No. GameGuard communicates with a few servers for patching and reporting. However, it doesn't modify anyones firewall settings and it doesn't install other software. INCA, the creators of GameGuard, sells GameGuard as an anti-cheat solution. Their incentive is to make a good anti-cheat for publishers, developers and gamers. Installing malicious software is very illegal activity.

Q. Will GameGuard interfere with programs like MSI Afterburner, or monitoring software like hwinfo64?
A. We don't know all the things GameGuard might react to, but we are actively whitelisting known good programs. If you encounter any issues with GameGuard killing a process that should be whitelisted, please reach out to our support team.

Q. If I uninstall GameGuard, is it totally uninstalled or are files left behind?
A. The administrator level anti-cheat service that is installed with the game is removed when the game is uninstalled (or gguninst.exe is run). However, we've noted that there are some remnant files left in the game directory in the Steam library folder. They can be simply deleted though as they're only previously downloaded GameGuard updates.

[The Archlich Hillary]

Цитата допису RekoHunter:

EAC = I'll buy the big bad edition and battle pass. Game Guard = no buy.

But the servers seem like they are on fire so may be waiting a while to hear anything from the devs. Oh well. Wishlist and check back in later or wait for humble to give it out or free.

Add me to the pile, AH. This is unsafe and keeping you from making sales.

[ExecutorQ3]

Game looked promising (and even fun), so i knew there must be a catch... Just wasn't expecting one this big.
Shame on you, you could have chosen much better one. Another promising game bites the dust (i give it 1,5month)

[CrypticTaco]

Цитата допису Amras Meneldur:

Цитата допису CrypticTaco:

Didnt know that but yer i still would rather own on pc as thats my "game zone" rather keep where my ps5 a relax gaming zone 😂

same. btw u can mute the mic on the con by pressing the button between the Joysticks , the little "spacebar" button xD

Appreciate the info 😊

[Harvey]

Yeah I am not going to buy this game if it uses that crappy anticheat. I was sort of hyped but this killed all my interest in it.

[Eleghrin]

Jumping in as someone who has bought and played the game: please, please reconsider your choice of anti-cheating measures. This game is fantastic, but the kernel-level anti-cheat very much feels like overkill and sours my experience the more I learn about it.

Given how technically and mechanically impressive your game is, surely you can develop a more creative, and less intrusive, way to catch or punish cheaters that is part of the game and requires no third party applications.

Please, please remove the anti-cheat, and soon.

[Mirage]

Change it to easy anti-cheat, or battleye, anything else besides GameGuard, good gosh. That company is so sketch.

[VR6R]

Just another to add to the list... my regular gaming group (5 ppl) were all ready to purchase... until nprotect.

[Agron™]

someone said something about if the devs of nProtect is from known shady country they would undestand others more, well if I'm correct and it's developed by "INCA Internet", which, yes is from south Korea and not the "nuke country", but still I don't know what to think about it. And by long search there is many threads that people don't trust NProtect and often example was game called "Undecember", don't know what kind of game it is, but boy there was ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ about it how it stayed after uninstalling and devs of "Undecember" had to give players manual to how to delete it from your PC, after uninstalling game itself.

Hope this issue will be resolved soon, would be pity if this was dead end for whole game.

[Fully Jabbed Turbo Golem]

Цитата допису Agron™:

someone said something about if the devs of nProtect is from known shady country they would undestand others more, well if I'm correct and it's developed by "INCA Internet", which, yes is from south Korea and not the "nuke country", but still I don't know what to think about it. And by long search there is many threads that people don't trust NProtect and often example was game called "Undecember", don't know what kind of game it is, but boy there was ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ about it how it stayed after uninstalling and devs of "Undecember" had to give players manual to how to delete it from your PC, after uninstalling game itself.

Hope this issue will be resolved soon, would be pity if this was dead end for whole game.

I know that some rootkits get killed when you exit the main program, not so sure about nprotect, and that is why I don't feel very safe, especially the tons of unsolicited tier programs you get when playing some eastern games

[Kawa]

Lmao, that coorporate dump.

TLDR "Trust me, we won't do anything bad with a known way too invasive absolutely overkill anti-consumer kernel anti-cheat! No no really, trust me!"

[Crokick67]

There are already videos of ppl cheating....unlimited ammo, unlimited resources...so yeah

[Ryan555]

Цитата допису Crokick67:

There are already videos of ppl cheating....unlimited ammo, unlimited resources...so yeah

I'm so glad that they ran with this destructive program to protect their meta progression culture at the expense of my computer and it's done nothing to stop cheaters

[Weavel Knievel]

Can they add a FAQ about Gameguard refusing to update and locking a bunch of us out of the game for no discernible reason?

[Squiggly John]

Add me to the list as well, I have never installed a single game with a kernel level anti-cheat, and this game won't be the one to break that streak. Especially with how completely unnecessary it is, not to mention it being completely ineffective at actually stopping cheaters.

[LordWaifu]

Either the anticheat goes or you don't get my business, simple.