Is this game safe to play?

[Azami]

I've seen A LOT of posts of players talking about the anticheat that's been labelled as malware and how it corrupts software, bricks hardware, interferes with user data outside of the game, hogs resources, and does everything under the category of being considered malware but being labelled as a legal service by having a registered business license.

There is also the countless cases of players showing that cheaters are basically unimpeded by the anticheat in any capacity and are able to play and cheat easily while also being to able force players back to their lobby, transfer host privileges to the cheater allowing them to kick everybody else, spawn unreleased content, give themselves any of the online store cosmetics, and straight up join private games of other players.

The mind-blowing cold-shoulder given by Arrowhead towards any of these glaring issues and instead focusing solely on anything but these issues makes me a little nervous about their mindset on player safety.

So I'm basically just wondering is the game safe to play at this point or is the anticheat/cheaters too crazy at this point to risk it?

Edit: I just read that people have found out how to use security flaws in Gameguard to alter other people's data through it :(

Edit 2: I might just hold off on the game until the anticheat is removed/changed rather than risk future problems by installing it

Edit: April 13 I bought the game but am constantly monitoring for file tampering

[Hoppin]

Personally I'm not gonna risk it until they remove the malware that is gameguard.
And as you said, Arrowhead don't seem to care about player safety, so I'm slowly losing hope for this game.

[LieutenantDevil]

I suggest just ignoring this game in general and all content related to it, it would be unwise to buy the game if they remove the "anti-cheat" as you're still supporting the same idiots who refused to do anything about it and don't want to take responsibility for using it.

Hard for me to talk about stuff without going into a rant so I'll keep it simple.

Game good, developers ♥♥♥♥, people bad.

[Wiawyr]

No. It would be one thing if they could back up their demand for absolute and total control over what your PC does with professionalism and displays of competence, but both of those have been completely lacking. There is zero ground for trusting this developer with the level of intrusiveness that this anti-cheat causes.

[Alyarin]

I'm avoiding buying the game until the anticheat is gone or swapped out, personally. It depends on your risk tolerance, but mine isn't that high for a single game.

[Sgt.Parker]

So far, its 1 to 150 players that end up with software/hardware problem after installing helldivers 2. But in my opinion its between 10 to 25% chance you end up with problems after 50 hours to two weeks after playing.

So question you have to ask yourself, are those odds low enough to play?

[Calv]

Originally posted by Sgt.Parker:

So far, its 1 to 150 players that end up with software/hardware problem after installing helldivers 2. But in my opinion its between 10 to 25% chance you end up with problems after 50 hours to two weeks after playing.

So question you have to ask yourself, are those odds low enough to play?

This isn't completely accurate.

The "1 in 150" players impacted comment was made in regards to one specific issue: Gameguard conflicting with other software and refusing to launch the game.

There are no stats available for how many people are reporting software\hardware problems directly related to gameguard.

A large number of things that were initially reported as being caused by gameguard have later been found to be caused by the game engine, AMD hardware\drivers or something else specific to the user's machine.

There are two main criticisms of Gameguard currently:

* It's causing crashing, hardware issues etc
* Having kernel level anti-cheat is a potential security risk

I haven't seen any conclusive evidence that the former is happening, and if it is, it's in the extremely low %s.
It is worth noting that unlike other kernel-level anti-cheats, Gameguard has the ability to shutdown processes it dislikes, rather than just shutting down Helldivers. This could potentially result in essential software being killed without your knowledge, such as fan controllers.

The latter is something only you can decide. Any kernel level anti-cheat could become a huge problem if someone manages to find or create an exploit in the software. Typically, they would still need to gain access to your machine via another method first, so personally I believe the risk to be minimal, but this is something everyone has to consider for themselves.

[Sgt.Parker]

Originally posted by Calv:

This isn't completely accurate.

The "1 in 150" players impacted comment was made in regards to one specific issue: Gameguard conflicting with other software and refusing to launch the game.

There are no stats available for how many people are reporting software\hardware problems directly related to gameguard.

A large number of things that were initially reported as being caused by gameguard have later been found to be caused by the game engine, AMD hardware\drivers or something else specific to the user's machine.

There are two main criticisms of Gameguard currently:

* It's causing crashing, hardware issues etc
* Having kernel level anti-cheat is a potential security risk

As a reminder, I account for reports I found on this in Maplestory forums which proove a few things that are happining now but major one I worry most its GG's ability to shutdown what ever it wants at any time.

When you account for this problem along that AMD drivers tend to allow bigger play with they hardware, you end up with big possibility of having major hardware issues.

[Calv]

Originally posted by Sgt.Parker:

Originally posted by Calv:

This isn't completely accurate.

The "1 in 150" players impacted comment was made in regards to one specific issue: Gameguard conflicting with other software and refusing to launch the game.

There are no stats available for how many people are reporting software\hardware problems directly related to gameguard.

A large number of things that were initially reported as being caused by gameguard have later been found to be caused by the game engine, AMD hardware\drivers or something else specific to the user's machine.

There are two main criticisms of Gameguard currently:

* It's causing crashing, hardware issues etc
* Having kernel level anti-cheat is a potential security risk

As a reminder, I account for reports I found on this in Maplestory forums which proove a few things that are happining now but major one I worry most its GG's ability to shutdown what ever it wants at any time.

When you account for this problem along that AMD drivers tend to allow bigger play with they hardware, you end up with big possibility of having major hardware issues.

Good point, I'd missed the process kill part out, I'll add that to my reply.

[LongTimeAgo]

If you want to play this game "safely", go play via Linux.
With the game in a Proton Sanbox that the Anti-cheat can not escape from, it also cant shut down important processes for your machine.

[Kraftkanzler]

Originally posted by Azamimaus:

I've seen A LOT of posts of players talking about the anticheat that's been labelled as malware and how it corrupts software, bricks hardware, interferes with user data outside of the game, hogs resources, and does everything under the category of being considered malware but being labelled as a legal service by having a registered business license.

There is also the countless cases of players showing that cheaters are basically unimpeded by the anticheat in any capacity and are able to play and cheat easily while also being to able force players back to their lobby, transfer host privileges to the cheater allowing them to kick everybody else, spawn unreleased content, give themselves any of the online store cosmetics, and straight up join private games of other players.

The mind-blowing cold-shoulder given by Arrowhead towards any of these glaring issues and instead focusing solely on anything but these issues makes me a little nervous about their mindset on player safety.

So I'm basically just wondering is the game safe to play at this point or is the anticheat/cheaters too crazy at this point to risk it?

don´t or linux

[Cat Supplier #47]

Game =
""""Anticheat"""" ( malware ) =

Install linux if you do not want your essential programs to be stopped by that """"Anticheat""""

If you have Windows and you do not want to install Linux, uninstall the game and use a tutorial on youtube to uninstall the files that GameGuard left on your Pc.

[Azami]

Originally posted by AH-64E Apache Attack Helicopter:

Game =
""""Anticheat"""" ( malware ) =

Install linux if you do not want your essential programs to be stopped by that """"Anticheat""""

If you have Windows and you do not want to install Linux, uninstall the game and use a tutorial on youtube to uninstall the files that GameGuard left on your Pc.

I thought hard about the Linux idea but I'm not sure how to install Linux and the process sounds like a hassle for a single game :(

[GatoMancer]

Originally posted by Azamimaus:

I thought hard about the Linux idea but I'm not sure how to install Linux and the process sounds like a hassle for a single game :(

It's honestly pretty simple, SomeOrdinaryGamers on YTube did a video recently on Installing Linux Mint and he goes through the process of installing and setting up games.

can watch it here and if there's any questions bout the process feel free to ask. He does a full install rather than a dual boot setup so do ask about it. You can play almost all Steam Games in this manner, even older titles that don't work well in Windows.

https://youtu.be/IyT4wfz5ZMg?feature=shared

[Kobold]

Originally posted by Azamimaus:

I thought hard about the Linux idea but I'm not sure how to install Linux and the process sounds like a hassle for a single game :(

I think you got the wrong mindset...

1. the install on most linux distro's are pretty easy, same as Windows.
Linux is easy to learn but hard to master.

2. there will probably more games in future...

3. your privacy will be improved and you can swap perfectly fine between both worlds with a second SSD, only for Linux... just deactivate your Windows SSD while installing Linux.

if you interested to join Linux check my Topic, several HD2 players already switched to Linux:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/553850/discussions/2/7599331177361006128/

[Kraftkanzler]

Originally posted by Azamimaus:

I've seen A LOT of posts of players talking about the anticheat that's been labelled as malware and how it corrupts software, bricks hardware, interferes with user data outside of the game, hogs resources, and does everything under the category of being considered malware but being labelled as a legal service by having a registered business license.

There is also the countless cases of players showing that cheaters are basically unimpeded by the anticheat in any capacity and are able to play and cheat easily while also being to able force players back to their lobby, transfer host privileges to the cheater allowing them to kick everybody else, spawn unreleased content, give themselves any of the online store cosmetics, and straight up join private games of other players.

The mind-blowing cold-shoulder given by Arrowhead towards any of these glaring issues and instead focusing solely on anything but these issues makes me a little nervous about their mindset on player safety.

So I'm basically just wondering is the game safe to play at this point or is the anticheat/cheaters too crazy at this point to risk it?

Edit: I just read that people have found out how to use security flaws in Gameguard to alter other people's data through it :(

Edit 2: I might just hold off on the game until the anticheat is removed/changed rather than risk future problems by installing it

I do not have specific insider knowledge about the anti-cheat system used by Arrowhead Game Studios for their games. However, based on the concerns you have raised, it does seem there are significant issues with the anti-cheat software they are using.

Some key points based on what you have described:

- There are widespread reports that GameGuard is being flagged as malware by security software due to its very invasive kernel-level operations on users' systems.

- It appears the anti-cheat is not effectively preventing cheaters, who can seemingly bypass it easily and abuse other players' games.

- There are allegations that vulnerabilities in GameGuard may allow cheaters to exploit it to access other players' data, which is an extremely serious security risk if true.

- The developers seem to be unresponsive or unconcerned about addressing these glaring issues with their anti-cheat solution.

Given all these red flags, I can understand your hesitation about installing and using software that has been credibly accused of operating in a malware-like fashion and potentially compromising system security and user data privacy.

If the anti-cheat situation makes you uncomfortable, it is likely prudent to hold off playing the game until Arrowhead either removes/replaces GameGuard with a more trustworthy solution or substantively addresses the vulnerabilities and gameplay abuse issues. Your system security should be the priority over playing a particular game. I would encourage looking into the issues further and waiting for improved anti-cheat implementation before risking your data privacy and system integrity.