Electronic Arts is going after cheaters in its games with a brand-new anti-cheat solution developed in-house by its engineers. Dubbed EA AntiCheat (EAAC), the company is introducing the technology as a "kernel-mode anti-cheat and anti-tamper solution."
This isn"t the only new anti-cheat offering to show up in recent years in competitive games, with Valorant"s Vanguard and Call of Duty"s Richochet coming to mind. Valorant"s own solution has spawned quite a few controversies since its inception, and it looks like EA is attempting to avoid those missteps.
The publisher says that EAAC will have a "strong focus on the privacy and security," and that it will shut down all processes when a protected game isn"t running. It can also be uninstalled manually at any point, though games that require the feature will stop functioning until it is reinstalled. Lastly, EAAC will only collect information on processes that try to interact with a protected game, and everything else on the PC will be "off limits."
EA says it has also worked with third-party security and privacy assessors to make sure EAAC doesn"t reduce the security of a PC it is installed in and that it respects privacy boundaries.
As for why it opted to develop a brand-new anti-cheat on its own instead of utilizing one of the many offerings already available, EA says third-party solutions lack privacy control, accuracy, granularity, and the ability to quickly act on security issues.
EAAC will begin operations with FIFA 23 on PC this fall, slated to protect both PC and console players as cross-play opens up the multiplatform title"s doors to cheaters. Head here for a handy FAQ on EA AntiCheat.