Garena Free Fire Dev Banned Over 30 Million Cheaters In 2020

Garena Free Fire is one of the most popular mobile shooters out there, competing with the likes of Fortnite and PUBG Mobile, and that means that a lot of people play it every single day. Unfortunately, that also means a lot of cheaters flock to the game as well; in fact, according to a new video from the game's publisher, Garena banned over 30 million cheaters in 2020 alone.

The video goes on to say that 31% of the accounts that were banned were reported by players, meaning that 69% were detected by the game's automatic anti-cheat measures. Auto-aim was the most common offense for these hackers, with 36% getting banned for it, followed by hacks that let you see through walls, teleport, and one that puts an "antenna" on all opponents, allowing you to see them from afar.

Garena Free Fire is a free-to-play battle royale game for mobile that has a lot in common with Fortnite and PUBG Mobile. Players parachute down to an island with fifty or so opponents and shoot it out in ever-tightening battle circles, with only one player or team surviving to claim victory. Currently, the game is only available for mobile platforms like iOS and Android.

Garena Free Fire isn't the only game to publicly castigate cheaters. Last year, PUBG Mobile banned over 2 million cheaters in just one week. Recently, megashooter Call of Duty: Warzone has had many problems with cheaters, so much so that an entire team was removed from a $250,000 Twitch tournament after being caught cheating. Earlier in January, many Call of Duty players used a companion app to dodge the game's skill-based matchmaking (usually known as SBMM), which elite players often complain about.