Top 20 Most Brutal Punishments Given To Cheaters

The Konami Code is, by far, the most famous cheat code in gaming history. To this day, there are games still using the code as a tribute to games of the old days. Although, not every game rewards players for memorizing the code. In “Pop’n Twinbee”, the code will cause your ship to crash to the ground and restart the level. In “Contra 4”, the Konami Code acts as an “instant death” code (unless you input it with the DS touchscreen during the opening helicopter drop), and inputting it into “Super Monkey Ball Jr.” changes the game’s title screen to “Super Nice Try”. It just goes to show that knowing your pop culture won’t give you a free pass on every game. So, be careful where you use it!

We’re all used to cheesing some bosses in our favorite games…[cut to TMNT NES Shredder fight] SOME bosses. However, some games will make it clear that we need to play the game the way the developers intended you to play. Take “Crash Bandicoot 3: WARPED”, for example. During the boss fight against Tiny Tiger, it’s possible for you to cheese your way through the lion stampede segments by standing in the upper left corner of the stage. However, if you tried replicating this exploit in the “N. Sane Trilogy” remake, Vicarious Visions would guilt trip you by having the audience hurl cheese wedges. You may have been able to cheat past High Road and Road to Nowhere, but Vicarious sure as hell wasn’t going to let you get away with this!

Have you ever tried inputting cheat codes of prior games into your favorite sequels? Fans of “Crusader: No Remorse” sure did when “Crusader: No Regret” came out, and they were given a nasty surprise! Inputting codes from the first game would cause “No Regret” to transport the player into a “secret level” filled with EIGHT Chairman Draygan mechs! Normally, this would prove impossible for any normal human being. Those who have beaten it have confirmed that conquering the supposed punishment nets you no reward. Instead, the game still outright kills you for being a lousy cheater. For once, it seems like the game is being a sore loser!

Remember the old days when third-party controllers came with buttons that allowed you to autofire? Some games may have forgiven and forgot, but “Metal Gear Solid” wasn’t gonna let that sh** fly! During Ocelot’s interrogation scene, the notorious gunslinger looks into the camera and says: (“Don’t even think about using autofire, or I’ll know”). Honest players using the standard controller had nothing to worry about. Those who ignored Ocelot’s threats and used autofire got to see Snake electrocuted to death for an uncomfortable minute. Hope your cheating was worth it, guys! You got to see a man die! You proud of yourselves? (We know we were...maybe.)

As we said about the Konami Code, be careful of where you use classic cheat codes. The same applies to using old cheats from “Doom”. Unfortunately, those who played Raven Software’s “Heretic” found out the hard way. In “Doom”, inputting the code “IDDQD” would grant the player “god mode”, making them invulnerable to all damage. In “Heretic”, this code will instantly kill the player. A similar situation plays out for the “IDKFA” cheat, which grants the player access to all weapons in “Doom”. Although, in “Heretic”, it takes away the player’s weapons, leaving them only with a stick. Hope you’re up for a challenge because this won’t get you far, cheater!

If you were ever sent to the principal’s office as a kid, this punishment may be familiar...a little TOO familiar… Although, if you have a conniving friend that cheats a lot, this might be a good joke to pull on them. When playing “The Stanley Parable”, typing “sv_cheats” into the command box will put you in the worst environment ever existed - the Serious Room. You’ll be forced to sit through a lengthy lecture by the game’s narrator, coaxing you about the mere thought of cheating. Cheaters don’t ever win, and “The Stanley Parable” will certainly make its stance clear.

This is a classic Nintendo cheat that many “Zelda” fans are aware of. In “The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening”, it is possible to snag a free item in one of the game’s shops. Simply walk in, grab the item you want, make him face the wall, and run out of there before he can turn around. You’ll be able to nab the item for free, but beware - the game knows all! NPCs will refer to you as “THIEF” instead of your character name for the rest of the game, and the next time you enter a shop, you’ll pay the ultimate price. Cheaters, would you rather Link go out as a brave hero or a petty crook? Either way, it’ll be on your guilty conscience!

Speaking of guilty consciences, “Animal Crossing” will certainly put you through the wringer! Becuase “Animal Crossing” relies on activity in real-time, the game doesn’t like it if you try to manipulate your save file by any means, including “forgetting to save”. (You know who you are!) Those who did so got to resume the game with an insanely long lecture from Mr. Resetti. You won’t be able to do anything until you talk to him either, as walking away will get him even more irritated. This only gets worse in later titles, where he may ask you type out specific phrases like “Hail Resetti” or even threaten to wipe your save file. Best not to get on his bad side.

There are many online games out there that will do anything they can to utterly humiliate cheaters. “Runescape” players will certainly know this for a fact due to the existence of an island made specifically for cheaters - Botany Bay! - A historic reference to the British prison colony that eventually became Australia. Cheaters that are caught red-handed (after two warnings prior) will have their characters teleported to the Island of Botany Bay where their character will be put on trial. Cheaters can watch helplessly as their character is humiliated and brutally killed off before being permanently banned from the game. In moments like this, we can’t help but think of a certain scene from “Avengers: Infinity War”... [02:12:04 cut to Avengers Infinity War: “What did it cost?” “...Everything.”]

Sometimes, you just need to specify how long a “lifetime ban” can be. Capcom was nice enough to provide a length of time before cheaters can play “Monster Hunter Tri” again. Cheaters will be presented with a message stating that their account has banned until the year 9999. If you are somehow still around and the Earth hasn’t been obliterated by aliens or the apocalypse, you can play the game again. However, if you are found cheating a second time, then your account will be permanently banned. Wait, the servers are closed already? Well, that sucks for the people who cheated!

It can be challenging for some players to see every ending a game has to offer. For example, “Undertale” has almost a dozen different endings, one of which requires that you hack the game. In doing so, the player will be greeted by Sans, who expresses his confusion in how the player got his error message. He will go on to advise the player to contact the developer before indirectly accusing them of hacking the game and calling them “a dirty hacker”. Way to make a player feel guilty, Sans…

Cheating is a huge problem given how much technology is accessible to the public. It almost kind of makes you miss the old days of using cheat codes with no consequences. Well, one exception to that was “Banjo-Kazooie”. Players could use cheats given to them by Cheato and Bottles, but there are also “illegal” cheats, which allow you to unlock a world. You can use a code once for free. After the second time, Gruntilda will threaten to disable the save file. Enter a third code and she follows through. You can keep playing, but the next time you boot up the game, your previous save file won’t be there.

Some of the most hilarious ways developers have gone after cheaters is by spawning some nightmarish monster to go after them. (Anyone else remember the invincible scorpion from “Serious Sam 3”?) As for “The Witcher III”, an exploit was discovered where players could farm gold by killing cows. To combat this, CD Projekt RED released a patch that causes the exploit to spawn the “Bovine Defense Force Initiative”. Basically, you’ll end up fighting a never-ending horde of demon cows trying to kill you. That’ll teach people a thing or two about killing cows for no reason!

As with many online games, “ARK” has had its fair share of cheaters and griefers. Thankfully, the community has found ways to counteract jerks by capturing and enslaving their characters. By doing this, cheaters and griefers will be forced to either stop playing the game or serve their captors until they’re set free. The offender can’t kill their character either, as you can force-feed them to keep them alive. Its a form of vigilantism that seems ripe for exploitation, but the community has shared a few success stories in changing the behaviors of terrible players.

Most developers resort to humiliating cheaters in some form, but Rockstar Games decided to get a little more creative with “Red Dead Redemption”. Any players caught cheating will find themselves unwelcomed in every town. Law enforcement will begin shooting at cheaters if they are within the area, regardless if the cheater did something to provoke them. To encourage a bit more vigilante justice, the game will also label your account as “Player-Killer”, which can draw unwanted attention from other players. Hey, if they’re cheating for an ego boost, why not give them the spotlight...by making them the biggest outlaw in the West.

If you care about how impressive your Gamerscore appears to other players, you’d best avoid cheating in “Gears of War 2”. In April 2009, hackers were discovered to have obtained Xbox achievements through unauthorized means. In doing so, they soon found their Gamerscores completely wiped, setting their accounts back to essentially zero. This prompted Microsoft to launch a cheating policy of their own. Get caught cheating, and your Gamercard will be forever branded, letting other players know you’ve cheated before and, probably, still are.

As we’ve seen throughout this list, developers are not afraid of putting the spotlight on cheaters. In a game like “Guild Wars”, what better way to do this than by a public execution? Now, there weren’t ceremonies or hearings held. No, the executions just happened! You could be talking to someone until Dhuum appears out of nowhere and straight-up kills them in front of everyone. It was such a unique event that if you ever saw something like this happen to someone, you immediately knew they cheated at some point. Adding insult to injury, the cheater would be permanently banned.

Demanding an apology from the cheater is nothing new in games. “H1Z1”, on the other hand, has a different way of going about it. If you're caught cheating, your account will be permanently banned. The only way to recover it is to upload a YouTube video publicly admitting you cheated. Then, email a link to the developers. Unfortunately, this made many people salty, and after receiving so many facetious apologies, developer Daybreak Game Company retaliated with a video mocking them. Was it really too much to just swallow your pride?

It may seem like a petty move from the developer, but there's plenty of reason for a cheater to be sued. In November 2017, Epic Games filed a lawsuit against a 14-year-old boy for cheating. But he wasn’t just cheating for himself, as court documents revealed that he was also selling his cheats for profit. It wasn’t an isolated incident either; YouTuber ‘Golden Modz’ was also sued by Epic in October 2018 for selling aimbot mods for Fortnite on his website. Both cases were denied dismissal, but were both settled for an undisclosed amount in Epic’s favor. Seriously, kids, just don't cheat. EVER.

Whereas Epic Games was suing “Fortnite” cheaters left and right, PUBG Corp has been sending their cheaters straight to prison. Well...in China, at least. In 2018, PUBG Corp discovered over a hundred and forty Chinese hackers selling cheating software, some containing trojan viruses. All hackers were arrested, with some facing $5.1 million in fines. Cheating is as big of a problem as it has ever been in gaming. It can hurt a game’s reputation and discourage players from returning. So, developers won’t take cheating lightly, even if it means filing a lawsuit or dishing out a hefty fine. Just play the game fairly just like everyone else, and there won’t be any problems!