Are consoles still a safe haven from cheaters?

6 min readJun 17, 2021

For as long as online gaming has existed, our industry has been in a never-ending battle against cheaters that keep on finding creative and sophisticated ways to gain unfair advantages. With the most popular titles being distributed as free-to-play live services, the barrier to entry for toxic players is getting thinner. One good example is Call Of Duty’s Warzone, a Battle Royale released over a year ago by Activision and co-developed with Raven Software. Warzone’s success is such (they just reached the 100M players milestone) that the title is now the backbone of the Call of Duty franchise.

While the franchise is breaking records, it is also a victim of its success: Raven just announced they reached the 500K banned accounts milestone. The tip of the Iceberg. Amos Hodge, the Battle Royale’s Creative Director, recently declared in an interview for VideoGamesChronical that cheaters were “ruining some of the best work I’ve done in my life”. Fortunately, cheaters are mostly present on PC, while the majority of the player base — and profits — come from consoles. But we’re starting to see new behaviors on both Xbox and Playstation, certainly motivated by the recent rise of esports on consoles and it looks like the most popular platforms are slowly but surely losing their reputation as a safe haven from cheaters.

In our previous posts, we covered some of the most popular frauds that gamers encounter such as boosting/smurfing or aimbot, and well, those happen on PC. Mostly.

Until now, consoles offered a much more secure environment than PC for a fair gaming experience. First, because the hardware is better protected, a ‘closed’ system is impossible to penetrate or reverse engineer without rendering your console obsolete. Second, because all console manufacturers now release their new-gen consoles with built-in anti-cheat solutions or any security measure they might deem necessary as they fully control the hardware. As a result, the most common and popular hacks on PC can’t happen on consoles, at least not with the same approach.

Anti-recoil MOD for the Strike Pack, used on The Division 2

While some may not have a choice — Some players have to play with PC hackers. For example, Xbox players on Warzone have no choice but to crossplay with PC players for better matchmaking, and, on Apex Legends, it is currently impossible to quickly get into a match without activating crossplay (which is ON by default anyway) — we can certainly say that consoles offer great limitations when it comes to cheating.

Unfortunately, this is starting to become a misconception, as we are discovering more and more ways to cheat, even on next-gen consoles. Almost invisible, undetectable, and impossible to stop with the current state of the art.

One of them takes the form of a hardware device that you plug into your gamepad or directly into your console. They are called Strike Packs, XIM, or Cronus Zen/Max. These devices provide new and improved controls for the most competitive players on consoles, or at least that’s why it started.

For example, the Strike Pack provides extra buttons on the back of the gamepad, offering new options for the player to be more reactive, and efficient. A very cheap and simple way to turn your generic Playstation/Xbox controller into those custom, high-end gamepads used by the greatest players.

STRIKE PACK

A Strike Pack costs around 35$, and for that price, you certainly get more than you bargained for. On top of those extra back buttons, the Strike Pack will offer ways to modify the inputs your gamepad receives when you use it. In other words, you can find various mods, specific to titles (Apex Legends, Warzone, RB6, LoL, etc.) or types of games (FPS, MOBA, etc.) that will give you a clear and unfair advantage over other players.

For example, you’ll find mods for:
- Less or no recoil / Very similar to macros or scripting on PC
- Aim-assist improvement, aim-assist can be boosted to become almost like an aimbot on PC
- Semi-automatic weapons can now go full-auto
- Specific binding button combinations that take skill to perform and separate pros from noobs can now be performed with a simple bind (for example: drop shots, double jumps, slide & reloads, etc.)

CRONUS MAX/ZEN

The Cronus is a USB key that you plug between your gamepad and your favorite console. It will then allow you to use any controller you like on any platform. For around 100$, you will also have access to MODs that will give you an unfair advantage on other unsuspecting fellow gamers, as advertised on their website.

“There are thousands of free MODs developed by the Cronus Community for all the latest games, including Rapidfire, Anti-Recoil, Aim Assist, Aim Abuse, Quickscope, Strafe Shot, Drop Shot, Fast Reload, Auto Sprint, Sniper Breath, Steady Aim, and much more — without spending hundreds of dollars on an expensive modded controller!” — from the Cronus Zen website.

XIM

Similar to the CRONUS but without access to MODS, the XIM is a device that allows you to use any type of controller on any platform. You can use M+KB on console, and while this is already a matter of debate within the gaming community on its own, we should acknowledge the fact that most online console titles allow the use of M+KB natively, so if you want to do the same for Apex Legends on console, this is the way to go.

That being said, the use of XIM on consoles opens the door for some of the macros/scripts that will still work.

It is impossible to know for certain the number of players using these devices, they are all constantly out of stock, worldwide.

Too popular? Certainly.

From the Cronus Zen website, where the next device you can order will only be available by October 2022.

Naturally, gamers have reserves before buying, and when you browse forums and websites talking about this issue, it is clear that game developers are powerless against these devices, as it is currently impossible to make the distinction between a regular player and a strike pack user.

It is important to note that all those devices were created with a specific need in mind, and while a diverted use led to toxic and unfair behaviors, they should still be used as initially intended.

After all, who is to stop you if you enjoy gaming like that?

As these devices are largely used by people with disabilities, they are also a way to make gaming accessible to everyone, as it should be.

At Anybrain, we have identified this issue for some time now, and we are working hard on a solution to solve it. We are confident that, by design, our technology is the answer to that issue that keeps game developers awake at night. By collecting and analyzing interaction data with the gamepad, we will be able to detect Strike Packs / Cronus / XIM users and more importantly, those who use them to cheat. Of course, as it is already the case for PC and mobile, this will work for any type of console titles.

We will share news on our advancements in the next months. So, before placing an order for one of those devices, you might want to think twice :)

Are consoles still a safe haven from cheaters?

STRIKE PACK

CRONUS MAX/ZEN

XIM

Sources:

Written by Anh-Vu Nguyen

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