Amid reports of hackers with admin rights banning players from official servers, Palworld developers apologize but claim "it is currently difficult to completely prevent all cheating immediately"

Palworld developer Pocketpair says it's aware that some players are cheating on official servers, but says it's "difficult to completely prevent all cheating."

In a tweet earlier today, the studio said that "some players have been confirmed to be cheating on the official server," and pledged to "apply a patch as soon as it is ready." In spite of the studio's upcoming efforts, however, it points out that "it is currently difficult to completely prevent all cheating immediately."

[Regarding countermeasures against cheating on official servers] Currently, some players have been confirmed to be cheating on the official server. We will apply a patch as soon as it is ready, but it is currently difficult to completely prevent all cheating immediately. We…January 25, 2024

Nevertheless, Pocketpair has apologized to players affected, and says that it "will continue to focus even more on security." That seems to be a notable departure from the Palworld roadmap, in which the Palworld developers said it would be prioritizing "critical issues," followed by improvements to major systems like AI, before moving onto other updates, including PvP. There's no mention of anti-cheat as a particular focus, though it seems that might be being worked into the 'critical issues' section of the roadmap.

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It's not entirely clear from Palworld's tweet what the issue has been, but a post on the game's subreddit suggests that some servers are having issues with hackers who "can do whatever they want." That ranges from amping up damage and duplicating items, to guaranteeing catch rates and even reports of hackers gaining admin rights and banning people from servers.

The latter looks like something Pocketpair will need to take swift action over, but it's interesting to see the developer note that it's not likely to be possible to wipe all cheating. With the sheer number of players in Palworld at a given time, even a tiny percentage could mean thousands of cheaters, and studios far bigger than Pocketpair have suffered as a result of the anti-cheat arms race that has plagued games like Call of Duty: Warzone for years. For now, it seems like the best way to avoid cheats will be to limit yourself to solo play or a smaller, multiplayer server.

The Pokemon Company has finally spoken out over reports of copyright infringement in Palworld.

I'm GamesRadar's Managing Editor for news, shaping the news strategy across the team. I started my journalistic career while getting my degree in English Literature at the University of Warwick, where I also worked as Games Editor on the student newspaper, The Boar. Since then, I've run the news sections at PCGamesN and Kotaku UK, and also regularly contributed to PC Gamer. As you might be able to tell, PC is my platform of choice, so you can regularly find me playing League of Legends or Steam's latest indie hit.