Rockstar Prepares for GTA 6 Launch with New Anti-Cheat Tools for GTA Online

More than 9 years since Grand Theft Auto Online stumbled out of the gates and eventually recovered to became one of the biggest sources of revenue for Take-Two Interactive, Rockstar Games has finally decided to implement BattlEye—a robust anti-cheat system designed to protect innocent players from getting doxxed, modded, and harassed on PC.

The latest update to GTA Online, which accidentally confirmed that a PC port of Grand Theft Auto 5: Expanded and Enhanced is in the works years after it was rated by the ESRB, reveals that the all-seeing anti-cheat software is now finally available in GTA Online.

Cheating and hacking have historically been rampant problems in GTA Online, especially on PC. At the same time, modding is a huge part of GTA Online's success and lasting popularity, which is part of what makes its implementation a double-edged sword.

Fortunately, you can disable BattleEye through the Rockstar Games Launcher, although it seems like this is causing certain issues with launching the game online. You can also disable BattleEye with the launch argument "-nobattleye."

According to the official FAQ, Rockstar is aware that BattleEye will interfere with the functionality of "non-cheat overlays and visual enhancement tools." It's also pushing for you to use BattleEye by not allowing you to connect to the official GTA Online servers when you have it turned off — however connecting to third party servers, like RP servers, should still be possible.

It even has a troubleshooting guide for what to do if BattleEye fails and you still meet hackers while playing GTA Online. That said, BattleEye is one of the most effective anti-cheat tools on the market, and is used in other multiplayer titles like Fortnite and Destiny 2.

Aside from fighting against free and cheap cheats, BattleEye can enforce a hardware ban, which means that cheaters can no longer create new accounts or buy a new copy of GTA Online to play the game. This is because the software has the ability to tag an individual's PC components. Kernel level anti-cheat software like this is controversial, but also incredibly effective.

While, as we've mentioned, BattleEye can affect quality of life mods that others use, it's a great tool for exploitative cheats. It isn't enough to completely eliminate cheaters from GTA Online, but it is enough to make them decide if the juice is still worth the squeeze or so to speak.

This is a lot of hoops Rockstar is willing to jump through. At the same time, it's asking the hundreds of thousands of PC players enjoying GTA Online with mods to do the same. It's quite surprising, considering that the game is nearing the end of its lifecycle — unless...

Of course, when you consider what's on the horizon, it does make sense why Rockstar is doing this in the first place. After struggling with the modding scene for years, Rockstar finally embraced it as an integral part of the GTA experience by acquiring the studio behind the most popular GTA Online mod, just in time for the release of Grand Theft Auto 6.

As Rockstar prepares to release GTA 6 sometime next year—insiders can't say for sure that a delay will happen and a former GTA Online director says we shouldn't rule out the possibility—it makes sense to roll out certain features that will be in GTA 6 to GTA 5 and GTA Online first.

This wouldn't be the first time that Rockstar used the second-best-selling video game of all time as a testing ground for incoming GTA 6 features and it certainly won't be the last. It makes sense too, since its safe to assume that a lot of people playing Online now will be playing 6 later.

As for the upcoming GTA 5 update on the PC, Rockstar hasn't confirmed if the leaked Expanded and Enhanced Edition will come as a separate purchase. At the moment, certain features like Career Progress and GTA+ are exclusive to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S/X owners.