Digital Justice, Gamer Style
Cheaters thought they’d get away with it—until developers fought back with fire and flair. These aren’t your average glitches or ban waves. This is punishment turned into performance art. Studios did more than block the backdoors—they turned them into trapdoors, then laughed as hackers fell through. The ideas are bold and brilliant. Curious which games mocked cheaters? Buckle up as we explore 20 examples where game makers flipped the script in twisted but genius ways.
1. Call Of Duty: Warzone
Activision’s Ricochet system introduced a brutal twist—cheaters shot themselves instead of their enemies. Dubbed “Damage Shield,” the tech bounced bullets right back and disoriented thousands. The follow-up “Splat” feature erased them mid-match without warning.
2. Batman: Arkham Asylum
Pirated copies turned Batman’s gadgets into liabilities. The glide function broke entirely and made it impossible to progress. Rocksteady Studios later revealed it was an intentional anti-piracy trap. Steam forums exploded in 2010 as confused players unknowingly outed themselves while begging for help.
7 Super Anti-Piracy Measures & Traps in Video Games! #3 by The Easter Egg Hunter
3. Grand Theft Auto V
Modders in GTA Online weren’t just banned—they were humiliated. Rockstar dropped them into “bad sport” lobbies filled with other offenders and forced them to wear dunce caps. Repeat cheaters faced longer sentences, with some stuck for weeks.
This is What a GTA Online BAD SPORT Lobby is Like in 2024… by TGG
4. The Division
Players abusing glitches were abruptly kicked or frozen in place during matches. Ubisoft rolled out on-screen anti-cheat messages that publicly called them out. The 2016 crackdown led to a reported 70% drop in exploit use.
Anti cheat fix Division 2 by A.E. Grimes
5. Dark Souls II
Caught cheaters were quarantined in Dark Souls II. Bandai Namco created isolated matchmaking pools where flagged accounts could only battle other hackers. Some ended up in glitched fights against enemies with infinite health or bizarre teleportation powers.
Dark Souls 2: How to handle a cheater by TheTurboFD
6. Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Nintendo cracked down silently on item duplication. Hacked items corrupted save files and even made villagers behave strangely. In April 2020, Nintendo banned modified consoles from accessing online features. Players with pirated content were locked out of visiting legitimate islands.
Animal Crossing New Horizons - Nintendo BANNED These Islands by Crossing Channel
7. Titanfall
Respawn's anti-cheat tactic dropped cheaters into empty, lifeless lobbies in Titanfall. Known as “cheaters versus cheaters” playlists, they functioned as soft exiles beginning in 2014. Respawn never confirmed who was flagged, which kept players paranoid. It became one of the first systems that punished without banning, just pure loneliness.
Titanfall 2 Lobby of Cheaters by Crimson_Archon44
8. Red Dead Online
Rockstar’s anti-cheat system went creative. It released unseen NPCs to hunt modders. Cheaters found themselves dying from invisible bullets or random wild animals. Whole sessions sometimes devolved into chaos with flying wagons and exploding wildlife. The July 2020 patch reportedly flagged over 90,000 suspicious accounts.
Red Dead Online has Flawless Anti-Cheat by TheForgery TTV
9. Crysis Warhead
Anyone using a pirated copy saw their ammo swapped for live chickens. While the story played normally, combat turned absurd and unplayable. Crytek confirmed this bizarre mechanic was built in as a piracy deterrent in 2008. The infamous “chicken gun” became a long-running meme in PC gaming circles.
Crysis chicken gun glitch by Forleav13542
10. Fall Guys
Mediatonic created a secret server dubbed “Cheater Island” and quietly sent flagged players there. No announcement, just strange wait times and only other cheaters to compete with. Hundreds were monitored to study in-game behavior. By late 2020, Epic’s Easy Anti-Cheat helped reduce cheaters by 85%.
Fall Guys Cheater Island by Dovah
11. Fortnite
Caught red-handed, cheaters in Fortnite were mocked beyond mercy. Epic forced them to perform goofy emotes like the default dance before kicking them. The lawsuits went further. In 2018, Epic took legal action against cheat creators, including one 14-year-old YouTuber, as thousands of accounts faced weekly bans.
Fortnite Sued a 14 Year Old by Top5Gaming
12. Minecraft
Anti-cheat plugins like Watchdog on Hypixel didn’t wait around. Hackers using fly mods or speed boosts were kicked fast, sometimes shamed with public warnings. The U.S. servers added a twist: obsidian “jail cells” for temp bans. Mojang’s 2020 Realms updates gave server hosts more power to boot bad actors.
13. Pokémon GO
GPS spoofers in Pokémon GO quickly noticed something strange. Only common Pokémon appeared, and item drops turned empty. In 2017, players caught cheating in raids were removed mid-battle. By 2021, Niantic confirmed over five million accounts had faced penalties in one year alone.
14. Destiny 2
Bungie banned accounts and wiped them clean. Violators lost access, had characters rolled back, or were thrown into “hell lobbies” with no rewards. In 2021, Bungie sued sellers like AimJunkies for distributing hacks. The legal wave also included DMCA takedowns for cheat streamers in 2022.
Defeating the "Most Notorious Destiny 2 Cheater Clan" | Destiny 2 Season of The Wish by Diffizzle
15. PUBG (PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds)
Dishonest players expecting a firefight got a dud—literally. PUBG funneled them into test servers with no guns, only grenades. In January 2018 alone, over a million accounts were banned. BattleEye also tracked hardware IDs, so even creating a new account didn’t mean a fresh start.
PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS | Announce Trailer | PS4 by PlayStation Europe
16. Valorant
Vanguard, Riot’s anti-cheat system, starts working before the game even launches. Hackers are kicked mid-match with full-screen ban notices. In 2020, Riot offered $100,000 to anyone who could crack its defenses. Attempts to tamper with Vanguard often caused real hardware issues like frozen keyboards or mice.
Valorant’s always-on anti-cheat system, Vanguard, is invasive AF by Engadget
17. ARMA 3
Exploiters in ARMA 3 didn’t last long—many exploded before they could blink. Others spawned in as helpless seagulls or were forced to type in all caps. Bohemia Interactive’s server logs tracked everything and gave admins full trolling control. These crazy punishments were used across U.S.-modded servers.
ALRP - Anti Cheat Is on point - ArmA 3 by Nick
18. Among Us
Cheaters in Among Us weren’t subtle—and neither was InnerSloth’s response. Anti-cheat updates disconnected them instantly or gave them bugged tasks. In late 2020, a massive server reset banned over two million accounts. Some cheaters were even matched only with each other, creating a chaotic loop of mayhem.
When Among Us Have Anti Cheat by Memes Today
19. Apex Legends
Respawn gave flagged Apex players a brutal surprise—their bullets looked normal but did no damage. Ranked access was cut entirely, sometimes forever. Within six months, over 500,000 cheaters had been removed. Others were killed off instantly by AI enemies after altering game files.
IS THE NEW APEX ANTI-CHEAT WORKING?! by Raider
20. DayZ
Bohemia turned punishment into performance in DayZ. Cheaters were forced into loops of bleeding or dying from spoiled food. Some hackers morphed into headless zombies or chickens. These weird outcomes discouraged script kiddies, especially on privately run American servers, where formal bans weren’t always needed.
DayZ Admin Destroys The WEIRDEST Cheaters In DayZ! Ep94 by AnarchyHD
