Key Takeaways
- GTA Online now has BattlEye anti-cheat, addressing cheating issues to improve player experience.
- Potential for GTA 6’s online counterpart to include anti-cheat from the start.
- Rockstar’s addition of BattlEye to GTA Online may signal preparation for GTA 6’s online mode.
Through the years, GTA Online has grown into its own massive experience apart from GTA 5. Although both games are intrinsically tied together, GTA Online quickly became its own thing, and it still manages to keep players engaged 11 years later. Despite this success, rampant cheating has often caused havoc for many players, and the latest update to GTA Online finally addresses this issue.
After years of players requesting the feature, GTA Online finally added an anti-cheat system with the BattlEye software. The system aims to give PC players a much better experience in GTA Online, as hackers can sometimes plague lobbies, ruining the experience for others. Now that an anti-cheat is finally in GTA Online, PC players will hopefully have a much better time, but this now needs to be the standard going forward for GTA 6.
GTA 6’s Online Counterpart Needs to Feature Anti-Cheat From the Start
Including an Important Quality of Life Feature at Launch
After 11 years, it seems incredible that Rockstar took so long to add a solid anti-cheat system. The developer most likely listened to player complaints and needed time to make a good version of its system, and it doesn’t seem far-fetched to think this system is being tested as a way to prepare for the launch of GTA 6‘s online counterpart. Although GTA Online‘s roll-out of BattlEye hasn’t gone as smoothly as hoped for, this is the prime time for Rockstar to see just how well the system works for the game and its players.
As of now, it’s unknown if GTA 6 will introduce a new online game or not. There are many hoping that a new and improved version of GTA Online is on the horizon, but Rockstar has yet to confirm anything. Getting to explore Vice City in an online environment with friends would be a blast, but it likely wouldn’t take long for hackers to arrive. For an online GTA 6 mode to be as successful as possible, anti-cheat needs to be established right out of the gate.
BattlEye for
GTA Online
is unfortunately not supported by Steam Deck, which has caused problems for many players who prefer to use the device.
For GTA Online, it can take a tedious amount of time to find lobbies that don’t have cheaters taking over. Cheats that involve increasing one’s money or spawning random vehicles can generally be harmless. However, if GTA 6‘s online version is immediately flooded by hackers who turn lobbies into killing sprees and make completing missions impossible for other players, it will likely cause an uproar.
Rockstar Potentially Prepping For GTA 6’s Anti-Cheat
The timing of Rockstar adding an anti-cheat system to GTA Online is suspicious. Currently, the expected release date of GTA 6 is sometime in the fall of next year. Two possibilities seem to be the valid reasons for adding BattlEye a year ahead of a new game. Rockstar may be going to forego an online version of GTA 6 at first and continue to regularly support GTA Online or GTA Online may be undergoing tests for the new title. With GTA Online showing its age, the latter is hopefully the explanation for such a late-stage BattlEye implementation.
Only time will tell if this is the case, but there will hopefully be more insight given into GTA 6‘s possible online mode in the coming months. It’s been a long time since a major GTA 6 update arrived, and it would be exciting if the next bit of news could confirm whether there will be an online counterpart or not. Even if an online GTA 6 isn’t on the horizon, there is at least the comfort in knowing that GTA Online‘s PC experience will be much more balanced for players going forward. However, this will also hopefully inspire Rockstar to make BattlEye the launch standard for any of its future online games.