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.

[_spiffy]

I loved helldivers and bought it on steam and playstation. This is a hot mess. Can we please get steam deck support?! I don't want to buy it until I can play it on my steam deck.

EDIT: I bought it and have had success making it work on my PC, but I don't feel comfortable playing past my 120 minutes before I close the return window. I'm going to wait for a week or so and see how this all pans out. Strong possibility I return it though.

[Sopas]

Цитата допису _spiffy:

I loved helldivers and bought it on steam and playstation. This is a hot mess. Can we please get steam deck support?! I don't want to buy it until I can play it on my steam deck.

they cant. With this anticheat it detect like cheat xD

[Oakatusz]

Considering, that you removed and therefore censored the thread which I put my time into researching with regards to the cheap anti-cheat Gameguard you are employing and removed the 50+ awards which were on it you just confirmed all the suspicions I had.

Thank you for confirming that you are just another greedy company with no regard to the safety of your players. I will steer clear of your product until big changes happen. It is a shame is turned out this way but still good to know what kind of people you are as a team.

Shame on you Arrowhead.

[Fenix]

"oh look! 5% of the player base cheated or stolen from our game! Time to install the worse Anti-Cheat in existence with problems that were proven time and time again on 100% of computers including the 95% of the playerbase that actually respected us!"
I'd rather settle for EAC or another known and actually respectable anti-cheat instead of this hot garbage.
Helldivers 1 was still a fun and popular game despite the 5% of cheaters. This anti-cheat is going to result in a game that forever lives in the shadow of the previous one, thus in turn means a lot less money for your precious and clearly much more important CEO than had you just respected the vast majority of your actual playerbase who actually pays for this game.
in fact, have fun paying my refund for this decision.

[AmusableBman]

Unfortunate. Looking forward to checking on this a year from now. Hopefully things change for the better.

[Neen]

This is the reason I didn't buy your game, and the fact that Arrowhead refused to be transparent about Steam Deck compatibility, because your team knew they didn't want more PR blowback about nProtect not working. It's protecting nothing but your profits.

[Crosswind]

Refunding. They should have followed through in removing this in the face of backlash like they said a couple weeks ago, but they are refusing to listen and instead choosing to double down on including actual malware in their product. To hell with them.

[Malactus]

Wasn't this put also on Reddit, the very same thing copy pasted?

With dozens if not hundreds of feedback that this is a bad idea, way before the masses learned about it?

It still is a bad idea and it clearly has hit initial sales.

Even the first example of the 9999 research samples is a bad example because there should be some form of possibility screening between all the peers: if its not possible, the session should not be valid for who ever caused it.

If two players in the same session cheat, then shouldn't the galaxy server should decide if that the session doesn't count.

Me and few others on my discord already refunded after hearing about this development. It leaves me with a bigger bad taste that you -continue- defending with copy pastes with tooth and nail and moving threads as they are.

I rather have some other kernel level anti-cheat (like EAC which has nice proton compatabilities for steamdeck) then nprotect considering their very colorful history over the decades.. I am still amazed nProtect still operate under that name considering the years has not been kind to it regarding stability and performance... nor even that useful case of defending against cheats or bots over long term.

They sure have learned from their mistakes (lol psobb uninstall debacle) but the recent undecember and the launch of this game shows it still has the same issues with performance and crashing so they clearly haven't improved in that regard.

How much development time will you all use to solve the issues for AMD cards forexample? that will be an interesting thing to observe.

[Wolfane]

I like that the game kept disconnecting my entire Internet after 20 minutes of multiplayer with a buddy, and now it has my router and modem unable to connect to the Internet after 30 minutes, a full reset on my computer, and a full reset on my modem and router. I have had absolutely zero Internet issues in the last year until now. Get rid of nprotect please!

[Shonen]

Managed Democracy at it's finest.

[HeavyDevy]

I was looking forward to play this on my Steam Deck, a shame that it won't let me. . .

[Crosswind]

Цитата допису HeavyDevy:

I was looking forward to play this on my Steam Deck, a shame that it won't let me. . .

Yeah, this is another issue for me. I was also hoping to play on my Steam Deck. So now I have a game that I refuse to let touch my PC and can't even put on the Deck in the meantime. This software needs to be removed. By all means replace it with EAC, but Nprotect has to go.

[NoCopy]

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.

Listen, I appreciate that you want to defend your game, and I also appreciate the complexities of anti cheat software. But please, please, as a developer community in whole, stop suggesting there is no inherent security risks or other issues associated with anti-cheat software. Anti-cheat software has root level access to the file system and memory stack, that, by definition, is a security risk. If for some reason GameGuard is compromised by say a security vulnerability such as https://www.cvedetails.com/cve/CVE-2005-0295/ for example or another zero-day issue then the user is at risk.

EDIT: you also make the point that it only communicates with a few servers. I should point out that Supply Chain attacks, that is hi-jacking upstream patching servers is becoming a common way to distribute mal-ware. And there is *no* better way I can think of than distributing malicious software through a service that has complete root level access to your computer.

It's the very reason Virus Scanners usually prevent Anti-Cheat software from being installed.

It's fair to say that you trust the product, and it legitimately seems like you do, but DO NOT downplay the potential risks to your users. No, is not a valid answer to the question above.

You want us to trust you, then be fair in your disclosure of the potential problems, not only security but privacy.

GameGuard is reported to include a keylogger, does that keylogger run when you have alt tabbed out of the application being played? Have you even tested / confirmed that? exactly what information is sent back to the controlling servers? I could care less if "anonymized" if any conversation / anything I do while all-tabbed from the game is still recording my keystrokes.

Don't just give us a "you'll be fine" PR speak answer. You are a developer yourself, and should be concerned about your own security.

[CarlZalph]

I want to play the game, but this thing isn't one I will willingly install on my hardware to do so. I'll give it a few months to see what happens, but it'll remain unpurchased so long as it's here and eventually removed from my wish list.

Edit: A month was given and no further responses on the matter have been done. I have removed the game from my wish list at this time.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/LY2hG-_asKU

[XylonChronX™]

I wanted to clarify that the anti-cheat software in the game is top-notch, so I left a negative review. At the same time, I strongly believe that the optimization needs to be improved and the microtransactions are nothing but predatory. Anyway refunded the game and not planning to repurchase it ever again. I watched a lot of Helldivers 1 videos and I was tempted to buy this one but from the start, this game is a big red flag, especially with that anti-cheat choice.