You can have all the anti-cheat software and deterrents in the world, but cheating in multiplayer games will never be totally eradicated. It’s a sad fact of life. From causing chaos in public lobbies, to getting the upper hand in ranked games, it’s a blight on some of the best competitive games around. Some will even look to break the rules at the highest level, attempting to gain unfair advantages during esports tournaments and competitive leagues. To send a message and show it’s not messing around, Epic Games has just paraded a Fortnite Championship Series cheater on its social channel after taking legal action against them, getting them to pay back prize money, and post an apology video.
As you can see, Epic isn’t messing around here. The FNCS has boasted some of the biggest prize pools in esports history and hosts international Fortnite competitions each year. When faced with players that have broken rules or cheated, it’s not uncommon to see publishers and tournament organizers deliver swift and lengthy competitive bans. What is uncommon though is a public humiliation of wrongdoers. Well, that’s exactly what the creators of the battle royale game have done in the case of Morgan ‘Repulse’ Bamford.
Repulse, an Australian pro player, was at the centre of a serious cheating scandal regarding qualification for the 2023 FNCS Grand Finals. Epic found that they had shared their account with a player called ‘Forbes’ who played on their behalf in order to help them qualify alongside their duo partner. Just a couple of days before the Grand Finals were set to begin in Copenhagen, Denmark, Repulse and teammate ‘Jace’ were banned from the competition.
Well over a year on, Epic has now revealed the full consequences of Repulse’s actions and put them on public display. “Cheating is never a winning strat,” the publisher says in a post on X. “We took legal action against a player who shared their account to unfairly qualify for FNCS. Now they’re banned from Fortnite tournaments forever and their undeserved prize money was donated to charity.”
Epic also links out to an apology video, which Repulse has seemingly been required to make as part of the legal action’s settlement. While the player doesn’t appear in the video or read the message allowed, a message appears in text form. It mostly relays Epic’s post above, but Repulse adds: “Cheating in tournaments ruins the fun for the players who earned their spot in tournaments and I apologise to the Fortnite community for my actions. I won’t ever cheat in Fortnite again.”
The general reaction from the Fortnite community, and those in communities of other multiplayer titles such as Call of Duty, is one of both shock and support for Epic’s actions. It’s surprising to see such a public dragging of an individual, but the company is being widely praised for taking a tough stance against cheaters.
If Fortnite’s not necessarily your game, but competing against other players absolutely is, you’ll find loads of great titles on our lists of the best multiplayer games and best free PC games.
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