Helldivers 2 anti-cheat is preventing some people from playing

When Steven Spohn wants to play a video game, he fires up the computer and puts on a baseball cap that allows him to use head movements to input keyboard pressure. Attached to the hat is hardware called TrackIR, which uses an infrared camera and metal reflectors to read the position of his head; Spohn then uses another program to convert these head movements into keyboard strokes.

It’s one of several software that Spohn, chief operating officer for AbleGamers, uses to play video games, along with an on-screen keyboard and dictation software called Dragon NaturallySpeaking. Usually, these programs play relatively well with video games.

“Every time I play those games [like Escape from Tarkov or Fortnite], I get warnings about using those programs, but they don’t block them, and so far I haven’t been banned,” Spohn told Polygon via email. “Although I heard from some disabled people who were. These decisions are always overturned in the end on appeal.”

Hell Divers 2 it is different.

Spohn posted about his experience playing the hit shooter on X on Monday, noting that the game blocked the programs it uses to play. “In effect, the anti-cheat protocol blocks assistive technology inputs from being read by the game. I have no solution for this,” he wrote.

Ironically, Hell Divers 2 has many accessibility features, including extremely high mouse sensitivity, according to Spohn. However, the game excludes players with disabilities who use assistive technology that is blocked by a notoriously strict anti-cheat program, called nProtect GameGuard. It blocks third-party programs like Dragon NaturallySpeaking and on-screen keyboards on top of blocking input from Spohn’s hat. “[It’s] effectively eliminating all 3 components of the assistive technology I use for gaming in various combinations,” he said.

Spohn told Polygon that he’s really worried about it Hell Divers 2Anti-cheat programs flagged the hat as a cheating device.

“NOTHING ever considered my hat a means of cheating,” Spohn said. “All it does is allow me to use my head to turn left or right to press a keyboard key instead of the keyboard key itself.”

Games are often packaged with anti-cheat software, and they are an especially important way for developers to track and ban cheaters who use third-party programs to give themselves an advantage. If you’ve played a competitive multiplayer game, you’ve come into contact with an anti-cheat program, even if you didn’t realize it. Easy Anti-Cheat is one that is widely used — Apex Legends use it, for example. Electronic Arts uses a proprietary program called EA Anticheat for Battlefield games and EA Sports titles, while Ubisoft uses its own internally developed software called MouseTrap.

Some anti-cheat software, especially those that operate at the “kernel level”, have long been controversial due to player privacy and security concerns. “Kernel-level drivers run at a very low level of your computer’s operating system,” according to Odyssey Interactive director of marketing Ryan K. Rigney, who covered the topic in his newsletter. This allows programs to get a “comprehensive” view of other programs running on your computer. Gamers have been burned in the past by software that caused major security issues, where things were secretly installed and introduced vulnerabilities.

They have also been a problem for accessibility technology, as that technology gets caught in filters designed to prevent third-party cheat programs. Developers have addressed this by giving players with disabilities the ability to quickly appeal bans from those programs, whitelisting certain software, or issuing warnings rather than bans. This was not the case with Hell Divers 2.

“If the anti-cheat becomes so locked down that my hat will be blocked, I worry about the future of gaming for anyone who needs to use devices like me,” Spohn said. “I 100% recognize the need for anti-cheat software, but the kernel level often means locking up programs that people use to help with disability issues.”

Spohn posted his experience on X in hopes of flagging the problem Hell Divers 2developers. “I hope to reach out to them and work with them to unblock these things because anyone who needs any of these types of assistive technologies will not be able to free any democracy,” he wrote. Hell Divers 2 creative director Johan Pilestedt answered on Tuesday that they will investigate the problem. Arrowhead Game Studios did not respond to Polygon’s request for comment.

The studio could issue a fix that would probably fix the problem for Hell Divers 2, but the tension between anti-cheat and accessibility is constantly emerging throughout the industry. Jason Thor Hall, CEO of Pirate Software and a Twitch streamer who has invested in sharing his knowledge and expertise as a game developer, said the problem is not an easy one to solve: “This is not as cut and dry as many people believe because there is a hidden war between cats and mouse that is guided between both sides. Both sides are wise and both sides win at different times, but not forever.”

He suggested that there might be a trade-off if developers invest in understanding accessibility tools and whitelisting them — while knowing there might be loopholes that cheaters can exploit look like accessibility tools. “Sometimes accessibility hardware or software can be detected as a mod because of the way it interacts with the system or the game,” Hall said. “For example, accessibility readers can hook a game client to read text or send input, and that can look suspicious. This is never intentional, but it always hurts people downstream. The best thing you can do is contact the developers to work together on a solution.”

Some companies take these steps, but it’s not always perfect. Microsoft is one company that has signaled that it cares about accessibility on its video game platforms — it has its own $100 adaptive controller, after all — but has banned some third-party controllers that disabled gamers need to play on Xbox consoles. It cited the “performance, security, and safety” of Xbox consoles in a statement to IGN in November 2023. Microsoft-approved devices will not be affected, a company spokesperson said, but a host of essential devices will be affected, according to IGN.

And, similar to the problems with Hell Divers 2players with disabilities are forced to leave EA Sports games like FIFA 23 and Madden NFL 24 because the anti-cheat software blocked utility software like dictation programs, according to several posts on the EA support forums. An EA representative told Polygon that “nothing should stand between our players and our shared love of video games, and as part of our commitment to inclusive design, we’re focused on reducing or removing as many barriers to access as possible.” He continued: “We are aware that some players are having difficulty accessing some of our games due to third-party accessibility tools, and we are actively trying to work with the developers of these tools to resolve the issue.”

The accessibility vs. security debate has even touched the virtual reality social platform VRChat 2022 after the company implemented Easy Anti-Cheat to prevent people from modifying the client. “Malicious modded clients allow users to attack and harass others, causing a large amount of moderation issues,” the company said at the time. “Even seemingly innocuous modifications complicate the support and development of VRChat and prevent VRChat creators from working within the expected, documented boundaries of VRChat.”

Accessibility mods for VRChat they were collateral damage — and since the platform initially had few accessibility options, players began to worry. The company did not roll back the update, but the debacle did encourage him to adjust his itinerary to address accessibility issues.

Solving the cheating problem itself has never been an easy solution. Consider the number of cheaters more plagues video games, despite robust and strict anti-cheat programs. It is certainly not an easy task to monitor legitimate versus illegitimate use of adaptive and assistive technologies. However, if accessibility is important to a video game developer, there needs to be a fix. For some, the solution is to ensure that anti-cheat measures are not added hastily, and are fine-tuned to allow accessibility devices and software to work smoothly.

Bungie, which uses BattlEye for Fate 2, adopted a policy that specifically addresses how third-party peripherals are used for both cheating and accessibility. It outlined a set of rules that allow players to use these tools to “enable the experience the game designers intended,” but to take action against people who “abuse these tools especially in order to gain an advantage over other players,” according to a post from 2023. “We will monitor rule violations and issue warnings, restrictions and/or bans as appropriate,” Bungie wrote. “This has been the subject of extended conversations, both internally and within the community, and we want to strike the right balance between Bungie’s goal of simultaneously enabling everyone to enjoy our games and protecting our communities.”

Anybrain, a startup that uses artificial intelligence to power its anti-cheat tool, told Polygon that its software doesn’t work on flagging anything at the kernel level, but instead “works by building a unique behavioral profile for each player by reading some input between players and the device only while the player is playing the game,” Anybrain head of digital content Ricardo Silva said in an email. This profile is used to detect “non-human” behavior when using a cheat program. Silva said Anybrain has “more than 99% accuracy,” but declined to reveal the games or companies he tested the tool with.

Silva, however, said the company analyzed the behavior of players with disabilities, using accessible technology, to ensure that use was not flagged. “This is why our anti-cheating solution is ready for correct identification […] a player with a need for an accessibility controller who plays with it and won’t label it as a cheat,” said Silva. Of course, this method is currently unproven to a large extent – at least until more information about the software becomes available – but it shows that there are ways to solve the problem.

However, going beyond anti-cheat software, video game companies that prioritize accessibility options that are as robust as their anti-cheat measures could alleviate the need for third-party software. Naughty Dogs The Last of Us Part 2 is one such game that has been praised for its robust set of accessibility options. Of course, it’s also a single-player game without the need for strict anti-cheat measures.

But the message from players is clear: Anti-cheat doesn’t have to be at odds with accessibility.