Once Human Dev Isn’t Messing About — It’s Just Named and Shamed Cheaters and Even Players Who Exploited a Bug [IGN]

The developer of Once Human has published a long list of player accounts which exploited a bug or cheated over the course of the game’s first week of availability.

Once Human is a free-to-play multiplayer open world survival game from Starry Studio, a developer owned by Chinese games company NetEase. It launched on PC on July 9 and quickly found an audience, with a huge peak concurrent player count of 231,668 on Steam. It’s proven so popular that the servers have struggled to cope.

But it’s already marred by cheaters and some players who exploited a bug to gain advantage, even after Starry Studio issued a warning to its community. This bug, which let players access and occupy Engagement Zones in restricted areas, was since fixed.

Rather than simply announce a ban wave, however, Starry Studio has decided to list all the accounts that were banned, publishing their player nicknames, the server they played on, the duration of the ban and the reason for the ban.

Players who exploited the bug were hit with bans of up to 30 days and had the items they obtained confiscated, but accounts found to have cheated (players who used third-party software) were effectively wiped from the game with a ban duration of 3,600 days. That is, to be exact, nine years, 10 months, two weeks, and one day. “We appreciate every Meta’s efforts to maintain a fair gaming environment,” Starry Studio said.

It’s certainly a statement of intent, but as with most free-to-play multiplayer games, Once Human faces an uphill challenge combating cheaters. We’ve seen how billion dollar publishers such as Activision have struggled over the years to fight back against cheating in the likes of free-to-play battle royale Warzone. NetEase and Starry Studio are only at the start of this arduous journey with Once Human, and it remains to be seen how effective this naming and shaming strategy proves to be.

Still, players have reacted to the ban wave positively, and praised Starry Studio for its communication with the community during this early period of Once Human’s life. Last week, Starry Studio responded to a backlash about how cosmetics work in Once Human, and promised changes.

Once Human has a ‘mixed’ user review rating on Steam, with some players expressing concern about everything from the game’s privacy policy to the use of the NetEase Launcher. In gameplay terms, players have hit out at mandatory seasonal resets and how they can affect your sense of progression and attachment to your character, as well as cosmetics being tied to individual characters.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.