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Arrowhead CEO, Shams Jorjani, has shared that the studio is “looking into” removing the game’s invasive and controversial anti-cheat, GameGuard. On Discord, the CEO was asked if there is no alternative to GameGuard, to which Jorjani responded, “I hear ya. We’re looking into it. Let’s just get this patch out and then tackle this other hydra head”.
While there’s no ETA for when GameGuard could be removed and replaced, at least Arrowhead are finally listening to the complaints of fans and are planning to tackle the issue. Just recently, Jorjani refuted complaints about the anti-cheat, insisting that the studio sees “no evidence of it having performance impact”. Jorjani also referred to GameGuard as a “bit of a boogeyman,” so the change in direction is surprising but welcomed.
Helldivers 2 GameGuard Anti-Cheat Controversy
Arrowhead’s decision to use GameGuard was controversial from day one as the anti-cheat is notorious because of its kernel-level access that is invasive and suffers serious issues like data corruption and performance degradation. The move was so controversial that Arrowhead released a statement on Steam back in February 2024, when HD2 was first released.
The statement was from Peter Lindgren, the Helldivers 2 Technical Director. In this address to fans, Arrowhead defended the use of GameGuard, saying that kernel-level anti-cheat is “one of the more effective ways to combat cheating,” and that “GameGuard is only active while the game is running and after thousands of hours of testing we’ve not noticed any noteworthy degradations of performance”.
As for why Helldivers 2 even needs an anti-cheat as a co-op game, Lindgren cited an example from HD1 where “there was a cheat going around which granted 9999 research samples [and] Unfortunately any non-cheaters in the same mission would also be granted 9999 research samples [but] These non-cheating players had their entire progression ruined through no fault of their own”.
We don’t know what Arrowhead’s plans are beyond GameGuard, but “looking into” replacing it has been met with great approval on Reddit. However, there are doubters who believe Arrowhead won’t do anything and that the response is just PR to get people to stop asking. We’ll have to wait and see.
Of course, before anything can be done, we’re still waiting on the next HD2 update. Jorjani has said the studio is “busting ass” to get the update out as soon as possible, but it has missed its planned mid-October release. Arrowhead are also looking to reduce the game’s file size on PC, and they will continue to focus on improving performance with new content delayed.
All this is being worked on while Arrowhead start development on their next game after sharing the first official details.
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