Bethesda Rebukes IGN’s “Inaccurate” Fallout 76 Hacking Claims
Bethesda has issued a stern rebuke in response to an article published by IGN which claimed that there was a; “huge hacking vulnerability,” in Fallout 76. The studio has previously acknowledged the threat of hacking and promised measures to prevent it on the game’s PC version; indeed, Bethesda isn’t claiming that there is ‘no’ vulnerability to Fallout 76 hacking. Rather, they contest that the issue was blown far out of proportion in the offending article without real evidence.
Bethesda Responds to IGN’s Fallout 76 Hacking Claims
The original article from IGN points to a Reddit thread as evidence of the alleged “huge hacking vulnerability” in Fallout 76. This particular thread claims, among other things, that there are; “no server checks to verify models or file integrity.” It also claims that a packet analyser called Wireshark could let players identify others in the game in order to grief or kick them from the server. The original Reddit post also makes claims that Fallout 76 players could hack the game in other ways; moving through walls, spawning items in their inventory, or becoming a “god.”
However, and this is precisely what Bethesda is now pointing to, the Redditor offers no actual evidence that anything they claim is true. The only screenshot provided is from a mod on NexusMods that helps players in Fallout 76 by displaying a sweet spot indicator during lockpicking. A handful of mods have already been made for Fallout 76 on PC. However, most are fairly innocuous cosmetic mods. Nonetheless, Bethesda is likely to shut them down once the game officially launches.
“Many of the claims in the thread are either inaccurate or based on incorrect assumptions,” states Bethesda; “The community has however called to attention several issues that our teams are already actively tracking and planning to roll out fixes for. Our goal is always to deliver a great experience for all our players. Cheating or hacking will not be tolerated. We know our fan base is passionate about modding and customising their experience in our worlds and it’s something we intend to support down the road.”