The Division’s post-pandemic streets are about to get a lot less forgiving for cheaters. The game’s developers say that starting now, anyone using cheat software will be banned forever, no second chances.
In a new post on the game’s official blog, the Division’s dev team say that the new cheat detection measures they introduced at the end of April have been highly effective, specifically referring to players who “have been gaining an unfair advantage in the game by using third-party software.”
From the Ubi blog (emphasis mine):
As a direct result of this improved cheat detection, last month we announced “the biggest wave of suspensions and bans to date”. This marked the beginning of an intensive campaign during which actions were taken against a total of over 30,000 accounts, including 3,800 permanent bans. This led to a significantly improved experience, particularly in the Dark Zone.
Following this campaign of suspensions and bans, it also became clear that while huge progress has been made in terms of cheat detection, our 14 days suspension on first offense policy has not been dissuasive enough. Judging from your feedback, and based on what we witnessed when cheaters came back to the game, we have now decided to push our policy one step further: we will now start applying permanent bans on first offense when players are caught using cheat engines and we will communicate clearly when new ban waves are taking place.
Of note: The post specifically refers to players using external cheat engines. They don’t mention exploits like the Bullet King of yore, so if you take advantage of a trick or shortcut you discovered in the game, you’re probably fine, as long as you’re in line with the anti-exploit policies they outlined at the end of April. Maybe best to just keep things on the straight and narrow, though.
Just a couple of days ago, Ubisoft implemented a similar zero-tolerance approach to cheating in Rainbow Six Siege after promising first-offense bans back in January. Meanwhile Blizzard has been making good on their promise to perma-ban Overwatch cheaters with no second chances, with thousands already falling to their Reinhardt-sized banhammer. All of this is fine by me.