In online multiplayer games, cheating can be a very serious offense. Blizzard has just announced a rather aggressive way it will handle it in its Overwatch July 2019 Developer Update video. The game will start completely shutting down matches if people participating are found to be cheating. The measure is already active in the PC version’s public test region and being tested out.
Here’s how this Overwatch anticheat measure would work. After a match begins, the game will check to see if people are cheating. If it is detected, it will shutdown. This is an automatic process. You then could just head into a new match where, ideally, people would not be cheating.
But, what does this mean for everyone participating? Well, Blizzard and Overwatch won’t hold a match that has automatically been ended due to cheaters against the people who weren’t doing anything wrong. Those people won’t even lose SR if this happens during a competitive match. (Which is good, since being in a match with someone who was cheating could have guaranteed an SR drop.)
As for the cheaters, well, Blizzard hasn’t said what will happen to them yet. All Vice President Jeff Kaplan said in the update video is that they will face “very harsh actions.” Some of the past consequences included suspensions and both seasonal and permanent bans. Perhaps a future update will include even more details about what will happen if people try to win by any means necessary.
Source: YouTube