Escape from Tarkov takes its ban a step further by naming all alleged cheaters

Escape from Tarkov, Battlestate Games’ escape shooter, has been in early access for years, and at this rate, it’s likely to stay there. That said, it’s an exciting game, although I’m not sure the 4,000 players who were recently banned from the game agree.

In an effort to stop players from enabling cheats, Battlestate Games recently banned more than 4,000 alleged Escape from Tarkov cheaters. Battlestate goes a step further than simply telling the player what’s going on; It shared the usernames of all accused cheaters in a Google spreadsheet on Twitter.

“We have decided to resume sharing information about the massive wave of bans powered by BattleEye anti-cheat. Over 4,000 cheaters were banned in Escape from Tarkov over the weekend,” the tweet read, with the supposed Link to cheater spreadsheet.

Dmitri Ogorodnikov of Battlestate Games said in an interview with TechCrunch yesterday, “We want honest players to see the nicknames of cheaters, to know that justice has been served, that killings in raids The cheaters who killed them have been punished and banned.”

As TechCrunch also points out, many other developers announce bans but never share what they have banned. Escape from Tarkov, like other live service games, has always had a problem with cheating, which it is trying to curb.

While I fully agree with banning players who are proven to be cheating, I’m not sure if I can share personal information about players. While I feel a little sorry for those users with “TTV” in their name, suggesting they might be streamers, it’s no surprise that some of these accounts might be one-offs, or just have meaningless usernames.

That said, the posted list itself feels redundant. Escape from Tarkov claims this is its way of showing honest players that “justice has been served”, but who actually cares about the names of offending players? Chances are, you don’t even remember the name of the Scav who cheated and killed you three raids ago. Even then, if they’re on this list, they’re already banned, so what does it matter?

Ultimately, Tarkov players, myself included, just want better security and privacy options in their games. This is what Battlestate Games should aim to provide to its players, not a Google spreadsheet of usernames like “creamtea”, “hotwheelsboy”, and “demonke” (which I thought was a creative treatment, actually superior).