Embark Studios may have wrongly banned a selection of them The finale players during the first ban wave of the game.
In December, the studio released a patch for the first-person multiplayer shooter, addressing persistent cheating issues that were rampant after the game's surprise launch. The update aimed to strengthen the title's EAC (Easy Anti-Cheat) system to ensure fewer matches were affected.
It seemed like cheaters persisted since the patch and according to The Verge journalist Tom Warren, the game's first wave of bans, which went live on December 31, accidentally affected some innocent players (via GameRadar+).
“The finale has had its first major ban wave overnight. It seems like it's affected a lot of people who don't cheat, including some Twitch streamers,” Warren said. Twitter/X.
Investigating the issue, it appears that some players discovered that they were banned upon starting the game or after playing a match “for certain recent behavior that violates our Code of Conduct…”
An affected player named Viscose posted a clip of them playing on Twitter/X The finale alongside top-down images of their mouse, in an attempt to prove they weren't cheating.
why I was falsely banned in the final pic.twitter.com/bCQ9qlcnjQDecember 31, 2023
The clip doesn't appear to contain any glaring cheating issues, and since Viscose was shut down shortly afterwards, it appears that it may have been an error on the developer's part.
Embark Studios has not commented on the recent wave of bans at this time, but we may get more context about the fake bans in the game's next patch notes.
The finale is now available on PS5, Xbox Series
Elsewhere, The finaleCreative director Gustav Tilleby has confirmed that the game will not receive a content roadmap as Embark Studios does not want to overpromise in terms of updates.
For more information, check out our list of the best FPS games just like the best co-op games now available.