Every now and then, we hear about a thing called the Cronus Zen - a small device that can be used for multiple things, but in cheating terms is used to convert mouse and keyboard into a virtual controller, as well as implement scripts that can provide an advantage through the likes of increased aim assist.
Some games have taken a strong stance against the Cronus Zen, such as Fortnite and Rocket League, and now the Battlefield 6 developer is attempting to combat it as well - thanks to assistance from both Xbox and PlayStation.
This was revealed in a recent interview with our sister site Push Square, and here's an excerpt from it:
Push Square: Cheating has become a big issue in the FPS multiplayer space. How are you combating that on consoles?
Christian Buhl, Ripple Effect Technical Director: "Yeah, it's unfortunate that cheating has become a problem within the console space, especially with Cronus Zen machines and everything. So we've partnered with PlayStation and both Microsoft in this regard to kind of do detection. We actually have our own level of macro detection and everything.
So if players are doing rapid with Javelin on the PC side. That's why we've enabled Secure Boot to help us combat the never-ending cheater problem. And we are aware of the console cheater issue, and we're going to be taking cheating very, very seriously here. And we want to preserve as much of the fair play and competitive integrity that we can, because at the end of the day, we want to ensure that you're having a fair competitive space to play Battlefield in."
Part of the problem with the Cronus Zen in particular has been how difficult the device is to detect, but clearly the Battlefield 6 team is serious about attempting to stamp out cheating during the game's lifecycle.
Of course, the downside here is that some people use the Cronus Zen for legitimate reasons - there's a good article on Access-Ability about how some would rather use the Xbox Adaptive Controller than the Sony Access Controller on PS5, for example - but unfortunately it's being used for cheating on a much more consistent basis.
Fingers crossed we won't have to deal with this in Battlefield 6, as it sounds like they're very much on the case!