Nearly a decade after launch, GTA V gets ant-cheat on PC as Rockstar adds BattlEye

It has been nine years since Grand Theft Auto V launched on PC, and Rockstar just updated the game with an official anti-cheat solution. GTA Online, the multiplayer portion of the hugely popular action game, now runs through the kernel level service BattlEye Anti-Cheat.

Neowin noticed the addition in the latest title update, 1.69, to hit GTA V, with the changelog noting "Integrated BattlEye Anti-Cheat for GTA Online." The solution can be disabled though, but this only lets players access the Story Mode. Here's the full changelog:

• Integrated BattlEye Anti-Cheat for GTA Online
• An option has been added to the Rockstar Games Launcher to disable BattlEye Anti-Cheat for Story Mode play
• The launch argument -nobattleye has been added to disable BattlEye Anti-Cheat when needed on third-party launchers and Story Mode play
• Fixed an issue that resulted in crashes while playing GTA Online
• Fixed an issue that resulted in players being unable to accept invites or join other players

It's unclear how this will affect the massive modding community surrounding Grand Theft Auto V, though the anti-cheat should take down most, if not all, script users in the online space for gaining easy in-game money and items. The anti-cheat is also locking out Steam Deck and Linux players out of the title currently.

A separate support page is also available for Grand Theft Auto Online players who are having trouble with installing or running BattlEye. Rockstar notes that ReShade and Special_K software as well as AVG and Trend Micro anti-virus programs can cause trouble with BattlEye.

Rockstar may also be preparing the PC version to receive the Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 upgrades like ray tracing elements, updated textures, draw distances, and other elements. This is according to dataminer Tez looking at the latest update's changes.