A Serious Conversation About Cheating in Tarkov

(Intro)

Cheating in Tarkov is not a new conversation or concept. It’s around. It happens; a lot. Too much for anyone playing the game. People either like to rant about the problem, or not mention it exists. Sadly, we live in a day and age where most popular games of any size, genre or cost have people who want to not only ruin it for the regular players, but profit from it too. And Tarkov is no exception to that rule. There have been different arcs in EFT’s life when it comes to cheating. And as the game grew in scale, ambition, and popularity, so too did the people trying to ruin the fun for everyone. I’ve personally only ever mentioned cheating in video one time, and it wasn’t formal like this is going to be. It was more personal experience and off-hand remarks. But now, after playing this wipe for about three weeks, strictly speaking only for myself, I have had more blatant instances of cheating in 2025 than I ever have playing the game. Emphasis on blatant; I’m sure there were plenty of times where I died to someone who wasn’t a legitimate player, but didn’t have the knowledge to know sure. But now we have more in-game tools to assist in figuring out if someone’s account looks suspicious or not. Regardless, cheating in games, sucks. Cheating in Tarkov sucks. It’s gotten very rotten over the years, and I am fearful that it will only get worse. Today’s video honestly, doesn’t have a specific goal or message behind it. It’s just to have a conversation about something we all hate and would Thanos snap out of existence if we could. Because cheating in games is awful, but cheating in Tarkov is a different kind of beast.

(Why people cheat in the first place)

Cheating in general is always for a few different reasons. Either because the person using the cheats is worse at the game and needs the unfair advantage to be competitive with honest players, because they have had enough with losing and want to win, or because they were having fun and once that fun was taken, they decided to let out their frustration by cheating and ruining the game for everyone else. In the case of Tarkov, however, there is another reason why. There is monetary incentive to do so. People will sell in-game items or in-game money on third party websites for those who have the desire to purchase them. It's a way to expedite getting to the good stuff, because it can be such a labor-intensive experience to try and level up. Couple that with Tarkov generally not respecting your time as a player; asking you to basically play the game like it’s either a mobile or live-service game, and you have a recipe for disaster. And for those of us who can’t no life the game to progress and just want to spend the little time we do have playing the game with the good stuff, that’s almost a decent enough reason to buy items or money so you can mess around like everyone else. Almost. On one hand I understand the mindset of someone who buys this stuff. I truly do; the individual can’t level up fast enough and thus lags behind the pack, making survival and taking out other players harder. So, why not just spend a little real money to be given the items necessary to survive and thrive in the game? And while again, that sentiment is understandable, it still doesn’t excuse all the players that have to suffer for it. Because what makes Tarkov such a miserable experience against cheaters, is that all your gear; guns, ammo, armor, everything; you lose that if you die. It isn’t just a Call of Duty lobby you can exit out of and requeue for a different match. No, if you die, your gear is gone. Insurance might salvage some of it, but that entire kit is now lost to forces outside of your control, and the game parameters. It feels so cheap do die in these kinds of scenarios; a player with information or abilities that they otherwise shouldn’t have takes you out and you end up back at your stash. It’s moments like those that has players lamenting the game as a whole, swearing it off, and waiting for a faithful day that will never come, where cheaters aren’t running rampant in the game. The harsh reality is that we all know a game will never be cheater-free, unless it’s a single-player game. But at the very least if the developers can make it seem like they have a hold on handling cheaters in a timely manner, that at least builds a level of trust with players that should they run into one on their travels, and they report them properly, that account will get banned within a reasonable amount of time. Sadly, BSG has not given players that level of trust. There are cheater accounts that live on for far too long, making people scratch their head and ask if there is even any anti-cheat in the game. Which, there is, albeit not very good anti-cheat. Time and time again, across a variety of social media’s, you will tons of clips, screenshots and the like showcasing moments where players run into cheaters. I mean I peruse the EFT subreddit from time to time, and the number of posts I see that have the cheater tag on them is absurd. It shouldn’t be like that. And this isn’t new; for almost the entire life of EFT, this has been problematic. It’s just that because the game is so much more popular now, there are more eyes showing it off. I’m sure even back in 2017, there were cheaters in the closed alphas. It’s just that the player base was so much smaller, people weren’t reporting it.

(Everyone suffers; but some suffer more)

Any game with any cheaters, means the entire player base has to deal with them. Unfortunately, with the rise of personalities online in one way, shape or form, there are some who have to deal with it more than the rest of us. In the case of EFT, there are many creators who will get targeted by groups of cheaters just to ruin their day. And in most cases, despite the best of efforts from that creator, the cheaters usually succeed. I mean I can understand why; imagine playing a game you have a genuine passion for. Whether because you also make content regarding that game, you’re good at it, or just want to share a passion with others, if you basically weren’t allowed to enjoy that experience, you would also probably want stop playing it too. For people more in the spotlight, the level of cheats used are generally more obvious; people think they can get away with it, so they want to show it off to potentially thousands of people watching. But for your average player, the cheats used are a little more subtle, generally. I mean anyone of us can enter a raid and see a fly hacker; those odds do exist, but it’s less likely.

(EFT is out to get us)

One of the biggest problems with the fight against cheaters is that the game goes out of its way to make sure you are constantly confused all the time in regards to what you see versus what your opponent sees. Inherently, Tarkov has so many issues with it behind the scenes, that being able to dissect circumstances that happen can be a real challenge. The net code being as bad as it is, means fights are never the exact same for two players. Peakers advantage exists, there is a ton of rubber-banding across the whole game, and tons of stutters and framerate problems. This patch was especially bad for all of these most likely because BSG moved the game over to Unity 2022, which anytime they swapped to a newer version of the engine, the goal was supposed to give them more tools and ways to fix things more efficiently. Not sure exactly what happened this go around, but things are the most unstable and awful feeling since the release of Streets of Tarkov. They mentioned not too long ago online that this year is primarily focused on lots of bug fixes, stabilization, and optimization, which I hope they can accomplish. Because anything to help smooth the game out so the experience is more 1:1 with players means that those moments where you shouldn’t have died around that corner will happen less, which means less ambiguity about the person killing you being a cheater or not. It’s a hot mess as a whole; the game has so many innate problems that cheaters only exacerbate the whole thing.

(We can’t even trust the game)

What makes these circumstance such a hard pill to swallow, is that EFT is one of the few games that lacks tools to really nail down if someone is cheater proper or not. A lot of the time, you need to just go off of your gut instinct and make a call as to whether or not you should hit that report button. Which we didn’t have until the last few years. We weren’t even able to report another player until recently. But now whenever you die to a player you can inspect their profile to see their K/D, account lifetime, and a bunch of other interesting data. As well as the kit they used to take you out. But what this has done is allow people to be a little more speculative when it comes to whether or not someone is a legitimate player or not. After you play EFT for enough time, you learn what figures make sense in reality for players to achieve. So, someone running around with a K/D of over thirty... yeah there’s a really high likelihood that player could be a cheater. And while this feature is awesome in general, it also has a downside. And that is it makes you skeptical of every single player you come across. I’ll be honest and say this is the hardest thing about EFT and knowing how many cheaters there can be. I’m so unsure about all the information after I die, that unless the fight between myself another is us swinging a corner and then just shooting until one of us falls over, I’m never sure it was legit or not. And as much as I want to report those kinds of instances, I feel bad for doing it too much. I remember BSG saying at one point that if you habitually report every single time you die, your reports would be ignored somewhat. Which makes sense I guess, but again, with how rampant this problem has become, you don’t know who is an honest player and who isn’t. It’s tough.

(Outro)

Cheating in Tarkov is not something we should shy away from talking about. It isn’t this taboo thing that doesn’t happen across video games. Every online game out there, people are going to try and ruin it. And as pointless as it can seems, having these conversations even if they developers know about it and are doing their best to try and resolve it, is good to have every now and again. We are all playing this game, together. And will most likely have to deal with a cheater in our games at one point or another. So, sharing those experiences, might help inform, it might help educate, it might help even entertain when we get the rare pleasure of taking out a cheater because they let their guard down. It does happen, and it feels like a small, but major victory for those who are able to achieve it. Like I said at the start, this video doesn’t have any solutions to the problem, because there isn’t one. Cheaters will always be one step ahead of developers and anti-cheat; as long as they are proactive and reactive when it’s needed, that’s all we can ask, as players. But hopefully this conversation was still engaging and perhaps cathartic to those who are frustrated and disappointed by the state of Tarkov right now. Just now you’re not alone. And if you are upset, there’s nothing wrong with taking a break and coming back later. Can't say it will be cheater free, but at least you’ll be recharged. Thank you very much for taking the time out of your day to watch this video. Let me know down in the comment section below your experiences with cheaters this patch if you’ve had any and be sure to subscribe for more videos about the worst of the worst when it comes to online gaming in 2025. I hope to see you in future ones.