Embark Studios may have incorrectly banned a selection of The Finals players during the game's first ban wave.
In December, the studio released a patch for the first-person multiplayer shooter that addressed the ongoing cheating issues that have been rampant following the game's surprise launch. The update aimed to bolster the title's EAC (Easy Anti-Cheat) system to ensure fewer matches were affected.
It seemed cheaters have persisted since the patch and according to The Verge journalist Tom Warren, the game's first ban wave that went live on December 31 has hit some innocent players by mistake (via GamesRadar+).
"The Finals has had its first big ban wave overnight. Looks like it has hit a lot of folks who don't cheat, including a number of Twitch streamers," Warren said on Twitter / X.
Looking into the issue, it appears some players discovered they were banned when booting up the game or after playing a match "due to certain recent behavior that is against our Code of Conduct..."
One impacted player named Viscose on Twitter / X posted a clip of them playing The Finals alongside top-down footage of their mouse, in an attempt to prove that they were not cheating.
why i got false banned in the finals pic.twitter.com/bCQ9qlcnjQDecember 31, 2023
The clip doesn't appear to feature any glaring cheating problems, and since Viscose got unbanned shortly after, it seems it could have been an error on the developer's side.
Embark Studios hasn't commented on the recent ban wave at this time, but we may receive more context on the false bans in the game's next patch notes.
The Finals is now available on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC, and our own editor-in-chief Jake Tucker has called the game "2023's slickest multiplayer shooter."
Elsewhere, The Finals' creative director Gustav Tilleby has confirmed that the game won't receive a content roadmap because Embark Studios doesn't want to overpromise on updates.
For more, be sure to check out our list of the best FPS games as well as the best co-op games available right now.
