Overwatch Xion Hack Results in More Than 1,500 Accounts Being Banned

It seems like Blizzard is tired of taking nonsense from hackers and mod-makers! The Overwatch Police Department has struck again, and this time, 1500 accounts were banned. The culprit this time: Overwatch Xion hack!

We spoke this week about the 200+ players banned in the Pentagon hack, but it sounds like they weren’t the only villains this week. Now, when you think of “hacks,” most people go immediately to aimbots. This isn’t the only case though.

What Is Xion?

Every one of these hacks or cheats seems to have a focus. The focus of the Overwatch Xion hack was hitscan and projectile heroes and offered quite a few pretty tempting offers to maximize the most of your characters, without having any measure of skill attached.

It featured ESP (extra-sensory perception) as an example. This outlines enemies so you can always see them, and auto-dashes with Genji. It can auto-counter Sombra’s ultimate for characters that can do so (Zenyatta and Doomfist, as an example).

What that did, is it would activate that characters ultimate to negate Sombra’s EMP, so you don’t lose out on the power. For $155 a month, you get this, aimbot, head dot ESP, aimbots for Hitscan Heroes, Prediction Heroes, and Object Aimbot. It checks battle tags, auto melees, hones aimbot and an Ashe Dynamite Aimbot. If you can think it, it can do it, apparently.

Who would use a hack like this for $10 a day? Even using it once is dangerous, as this sting shows. The prices were $10 a day, seven days for $50 and 30 days for $155. Once again, we have a 150~ price tag for cheating in Overwatch. Instead of spending so much money to get a little “free ELO,” you could, you know, practice?

Crime Doesn’t Pay

The original tweet from the Overwatch Police Department pointed out 500+ users from the KR/EU/NA regions, with multiple accounts, were banned. Now, more than 1600 users have been banned apparently. Brian “Kephrii” St. Pierre has also leveled accusations at members of the Overwatch Pro Circuit for cheating, at least during the Breaking Barriers tournament.

I am curious to see if Blizzard is going to investigate that as well. There is nothing worse than a pro cheating, if you ask me, at least in esports. It shows regular players that they can get away with that, even for a little while. People who cheat likely don’t cheat all the time, though. They pull that stuff out when it’s a desperate situation, like a major match or important competitive moment.

I’m glad that Gamerdoc (Mohamed Al-Sharifi) and the Overwatch Police Department are doing this work. Some people might say what they’re doing is wrong, too, if they’re using any hacking tools to detect these cheaters, but I can’t entirely agree with that position.

These aren’t players who are using cheats to win. They are players passionate about the game and want to see those who break the rules punished for it. Now, if they wind up with personal information, documents, et cetera, that would be a whole other matter. It’s a pretty grey area. But Blizzard is aware of the OPD’s existence and aren’t mad about it. So, it’s clear they aren’t doing anything that Blizzard doesn’t approve of, and isn’t illegal in some fashion.

Of course, there are still likely dozens of other mods, hacks or cheats for Overwatch. That’s no big secret. But if there are people in the community fighting for a fair competitive/online scene, they won’t last forever. I wonder if those hackers can be prosecuted or punished in some manner. Or do they re-create their software with slight modifications and advertise again? This is something I’m certainly curious about.

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