Seeing anti-cheat solutions on games is not an uncommon sight nowadays, with almost all online multiplayer titles featuring some sort of detection for anyone trying to be a little too friendly with their internals.
Unlike the classic PunkBuster days, more than a few options are currently available for developers. The growing trend seems to be kernel-mode anti-cheat systems, which try to combat cheaters by integrating themselves deeply inside the operating system.
With the number of kernel mode anti-cheat solutions growing steadily, Valve has revealed that it has received feedback from both developers and players about making their existence more easily seen on Steam store pages:
"We"ve heard from more and more developers recently that they"re looking for the right way to share anti-cheat information about their game with players. At the same time, players have been requesting more transparency around the anti-cheat services used in games, as well as the existence of any additional software that will be installed within the game."
Developers can now edit their store pages and add in this information in the new "Anti-Cheat" section for transparency. New games being published on Steam will be checked by Valve to make sure the section is filled accurately as well. The field is optional if it"s an anti-cheat solution that does not use a kernel mode driver. However, it"s mandatory if it does use one.
"if your game installs a client side, kernel mode anti-cheat, you will need to fill out this new field," explains Valve to developers in a Steamworks dev post. "We will be going through old games and contacting partners with games that fall into this category."
Soon, players should start seeing what kind of anti-cheat their games use, may it be Ricochet from Activision, Epic Games" Easy Anti-Cheat, Riot Games" Vanguard, Denuvo Anti-Cheat, BattlEye, or another.