Thirteen months after launch, Splatoon 2 has been found to have introduced anti-cheating measures. The discovery goes back to the modder Khangaroo, who says the system was actually implemented in April but wasn’t banning users actively until version 3.1.0 in June.
If Splatoon 2‘s server checks find you’ve hacked the game for cheating and mods online, a ban will be applied to your Nintendo Online account 24 hours after the fact. Offline modding, such as graphics or save data, are safe to do for now.
Someone hacked the Splatoon 2 X Rank Leaderboard in an effort to call out Nintendo's lack of response to cheaters.
"Please add anti cheat" pic.twitter.com/ehz4mmWL3c
— Nintendeal (@Nintendeal) July 12, 2018
There has been a bit of an outcry from select players for Nintendo to fix Splatoon 2‘s online play from cheaters, who are most likely to break the balance of play for those who play fairly. It got to the point that one player, on Reddit under PleaseAddAntiCheat, hacked the game’s X Rank leaderboard with a direct message to Nintendo. The player in question was banned, but the message seems to have been heard in some roundabout way. His motive for hacking Splatoon 2 to send a message about hacking was “to call attention to the current issue that plagues the game, and I’ve done that. But my message is, please make protecting your players the top priority.”
These anti-cheat fixes only apply to Splatoon 2, whose online mode is about to get behind a paywall with the Nintendo Switch Online service in late September. The original Splatoon on Wii U, which can still be played online, is still under siege of hackers and cheating.
