They might not have an enemy in Nintendo’s legal team just yet, but Palworld developers Pocketpair have a different battle to fight in the meantime: online cheaters in the immensely popular ‘Pokémon with guns’ survival game.
The studio confirmed reports of cheaters causing grief for those playing online in the game’s official servers. While a proper PvP mode isn’t in the game yet – it’s in the works, though – players in the game’s subreddit have reported being killed by other human players and having their pals, bases and even clans stolen using what seem to be glitches, hacks and other exploits.
Pocketpair acknowledged that they would address “cheating on the official server” with a patch, adding “countermeasures against various cheats and exploits” in the recent v0.1.3.0 update (it also fixes minor bugs with loading screens and the world date), but warned that “it is currently difficult to completely prevent all cheating immediately” – so expect to run into some cheats and hackers in the meantime, in other words.
“We will continue to focus even more on security and aim to create an environment where everyone can play with peace of mind,” the developers added in a Steam blog post apologising to players who had run into the online ne’er-do-wells.
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The issues on the official servers may be particularly frustrating for those playing through the PC Game Pass version of Palworld, which currently doesn’t allow players to join or set up a dedicated Palworld server.
At least one exploit is a little less rage-inducing, allowing players to catch the game’s first boss Zoe and Grizzbolt and unleash their beefy minigun attacks – the perfect catharsis for having your hard work hacked away from you, perhaps.