Aimbots and wallhacks are compulsory in Cheaters Cheetah, an FPS designed by a former cheat developer that bans you if you lose

The psychology of people who cheat in competitive games remains deeply mysterious to me, but I’ll hazard a guess it stems from a love of ruining someone’s day rather than any real sense of accomplishment. Something I am interested in, however, is the idea of play as transgression.

There is, for example, a subset of people who get very irritated at the concept of speedruns. I suspect this is because, even if we aren’t consciously engaged with a game’s story, there’s an underlying sense of what I’m going to very clumsily call ‘narrative correctness’ that’s absolutely shattered when, say, Leon Kennedy starts shuffling up stairs at superhuman speeds. Glitches, warps, and other exploits expose the shroud of storytelling conjured by every little piece of a game’s design, pulling off the mask so the underlying grey box is painfully visible. They call art a liar.

Competitive FPS Cheaters Cheetah initially seems like pure transgression against any sense of fair play or even level design, but the key here is that everyone gets cheats like aimbots, wallhacks, and spinbots. “This creates a unique dynamic,” reads the game’s Steam page, “where everyone knows everyone else’s position, leading to intense mind games and thrilling battles”. It sounds like it’s either going to be a complete disaster or incredibly interesting, probably both.

It’s from Acmore Games, with help from a reformed miscreant cheat developer. Before matches, you’ll choose a mode. “Legit cheat” just lets everyone see through walls with wallhacks, and “rage cheat” unlocks the whole kit. Alongside classic deathmatch, there’s also a “Raid boss” mode – “where multiple legit cheaters team up against 1 rage cheater”. You can also play single player against bots. From Steam:

“The game is set in a prison for former cheaters, who were caught using cheats in a popular online FPS. Transformed into cheetahs, they are forced to participate in a game show “Cheaters Cheetah” as a punishment. Winners will be granted with the “BAN Hammer”, allowing them to BAN all of the losers from the game. Show no mercy to those scumbags!”

It’s not entirely clear exactly how this BAN Hammer works, but if it literally stops you from ever playing the game again, I can’t help but respect the performance art quality to it all – although my aesthetic tastes are obviously very malleable depending on pricing. No release date on this one just yet. Kids these days, eh? All we had was big head mode.