Marvel Rivals devs lift bans on players mistakenly banned for cheating: "We do not and will not ban players who are playing fairly"

Venom, Spider-Man, Peni Parker, Scarlet Witch, Magneto, and Storm pose in artwork for Marvel Rivals
(Image credit: NetEase)

Marvel Rivals developer NetEase Games admits that a number of players have recently been hit with bans for cheating… even though they'd not been cheating at all. 

According to community manager 'James' in the game's official Discord server, this has proven to be a problem for those playing Marvel Rivals in compatibility layer programs – software designed to allow users to run things like games on a different operating system to the one it was written for. For example, you might use one to play a Windows-compatible game on Linux. Needless to say, it's not cheating software, but it sounds like NetEase Games' cheat detection systems might not have realised this.

"Recently, we've received feedback from players regarding an issue where some individuals playing in compatibility layer programs have been mistakenly flagged as cheaters, even without using any cheating software," James writes. "This has resulted in bans. We sincerely apologize for this situation and want to assure you that we do not and will not ban players who are playing fairly and without cheating."

The devs have now "identified the specific reasons behind these false bans," have put together a list of those affected, and lifted their bans, apologizing "for the inconvenience this has caused." 

Continuing, the community manager states: "Our mission is to provide all players with a fair, just, and enjoyable gaming environment. Therefore, preventing and identifying cheaters is one of our top priorities. We have invested significant manpower and resources to improve the speed and accuracy of our detection systems. With any ongoing detection system, there is always room for improvement. We appreciate your assistance in helping us tackle this challenge."

Wrapping things up, players are encouraged to report any actual cheating they encounter, and contact customer support if they think they've been banned by mistake. Hopefully the chance of that happening is relatively slim, but it's clearly possible – at least NetEase appears to be on the case when it comes to sorting it out. 

The list of upcoming Marvel Rivals characters just got bigger as it's been confirmed that The Fantastic Four are being added to the shooter soon.  

Catherine Lewis
News Writer

I'm one of GamesRadar+'s news writers, who works alongside the rest of the news team to deliver cool gaming stories that we love. After spending more hours than I can count filling The University of Sheffield's student newspaper with Pokemon and indie game content, and picking up a degree in Journalism Studies, I started my career at GAMINGbible where I worked as a journalist for over a year and a half. I then became TechRadar Gaming's news writer, where I sourced stories and wrote about all sorts of intriguing topics. In my spare time, you're sure to find me on my Nintendo Switch or PS5 playing through story-driven RPGs like Xenoblade Chronicles and Persona 5 Royal, nuzlocking old Pokemon games, or going for a Victory Royale in Fortnite.

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