Overwatch streamer discovers cheater using unstoppable AI teammate

Michael Gwilliam

Twitch streamer Redshell encountered a new type of cheater in Overwatch after discovering that a Reinhardt player had an AI McCree follow him to land perfectly accurate shots.

The Lucio specialist was playing a match on Oasis with fellow streamer m0xy when players on the other team started complaining about cheating.

At first, Redshell had no idea what was going on and neither he or m0xy believed their teammates were engaging in unsportsmanlike conduct. “These guys are just f**king garbage,” m0xy joked.

Redshell’s team won easily, but it wasn’t a clean win.

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However, the Mexican Lucio main decided to use the Overwatch replay feature to see what was going on. “How is my Reinhardt cheating?” he asked while checking out the tank’s POV.

Things began to look a lot more suspicious when observed the McCree “player’s” behavior, most notably the crosshair placement because it never moved an inch upwards.

“He’s definitely cheating,” Redshell remarked. “Why does he move like a bot? Is that an AI?! I think it’s an AI.”

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As the streamer noted, the McCree player named “RAGEQUIT” walked in a very strange pattern, sometimes even into walls. However, despite the bizarre strut, the DPS had an unfathomably accurate aim.

“Look how he moves,” he investigator noted as the bot proceeded to land two headshots onto an ulting Mercy. “It’s an AI!”

“Actual machine learning monkaS,” m0xy replied to the streamer in-game.

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Then, an individual who claimed to have created the AI appeared in Redshell’s chat and said: “This is the first AI cheating in Overwatch. How does this work? He likes follows the Reinhardt.”

According to the individual in the chat, he was playing as Reinhardt and the bot would follow him.

“This is the most elaborate hack in the world, dude!” the streamer exclaimed.

The machines are taking over!

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While this type of cheating could potentially be very harmful to the state of Overwatch, it’s likely that Blizzard are aware and making the appropriate countermeasures.

As announced in the last developer update, Game Director Jeff Kaplan indicated that there would be some major things coming in the next two patches to address cheating in the game.

Until then, we can only hope that our games aren’t plagued by AI opponents who don’t miss.

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About The Author

Michael Gwilliam is a senior writer at Dexerto based in Ontario, Canada. He specializes in Overwatch, Smash, influencers, and Twitch culture. Gwilliam has written for sites across Canada including the Toronto Sun. You can contact him at michael.gwilliam@dexerto.com or on Twitter @TheGwilliam