Valve's new anti-cheat system for Deadlock lets players turn cheaters into frogs

Valve has a brand-new way of dealing with cheaters in its unreleased third-person MOBA entry Deadlock. With the latest update that has been deployed to the game, players get to decide how detected cheaters are dealt with when Valve's anti-cheat catches them mid-game. The choices are ban them immediately, or turn them into a frog.

Being a game that's still in development, and barely announced, this is the first time anti-cheat has entered Deadlock in any significant way. After being turned into an amphibian, the system will ban the player afterward anyway, so this is just a fun way of dealing with a cheating player before the banhammer does its job.

Here's how the system works in Valve's own words:

Added an initial Anti-Cheat detection system. When a user is detected as cheating, during the game session the opponents will be given a choice between banning the user immediately and ending the match or turning the cheater into a frog for the rest of the game and then banning them afterwards.

The frog effect can be seen in full the embedded video below.

Unfortunately, while being humorous for most, this frog system probably won't be utilized for the full release of Deadlock. Valve itself says this is an "initial Anti-Cheat detection system" and that it is working on a second version "that is more extensive."

"We will turn on the banning of users in a couple of days after the update is out," says the company in the changelog. For those who may be worried the frog implementation will mess with their rankings in-game, Valve added that "when a match is ended this way, the results will not count for other players."

Aside from the frog attack, the update also added Mirage as a new playable hero, who can control the winds, throw out fire scarabs, and steal life from enemies. His ultimate ability lets him teleport to an ally or visible enemy anywhere on the minimap for instant ambushes. Read the complete changelog of this major update to Deadlock here.