Anime Fighting Game Was Attacked by Hackers Which Made it Unplayable

Arc System Works’ hugely popular 2D anime fighter, Guilty Gear Strive, is under attack by hackers who have resurrected a fatal exploit that appears to have rendered the game unplayable online for some players.
Like most competitive games, Guilty Gear Strive has some method of saving player data. It’s called “R-Code” and it stores all kinds of information from in-game handles to win-loss records, among other stats. It’s not the most stable, as gamers reported a few years ago that an R code bug would not allow the game to connect to online play.

And last December, hackers discovered they were stealing players’ R code details, such as: B. names, in the middle of a game to stop the game. It seems this exploit has resurfaced as hackers discovered that not only could they change player names, but they could also force players to send in-game chat messages and cause memory leak issues that slowed matches to a sneaky one. This issue seems to mainly affect Strive’s online modes, including Arcade, Dojo, Training, and more.

As Strive Pro Julian “Hotashi” Harris put it in a January 3 YouTube video of the exploit, which appears to be occurring infrequently, “because whoever ran this hack [appeared] to be in Eastern European Time.” . Hotashi notes that not only can hacks send unwanted messages and crash games, but they can also “cause some kind of GPU or CPU leak,” forcing Strive to slow your computer down to unplayable levels, or, yet worse, “a black screen of death on your computer .” Hotashi also says that while you’re more likely to be the target of this exploit if you’re a prominent figure in the community, the problem isn’t just limited to streamers on PC. Console gamers are also reportedly affected. I guess nothing is certain now.

Fighting game commentator Stephen “Sajam” Lyon says talking about hacking is an important discussion as Frosty Faustings, the famous tournament stretch that Strive will be appearing in, is due to start on February 2nd. Training at a time when these exploits were widespread.

“There’s a feature where you can follow people on Guilty Gear Strive,” Sajam said. “Even if the person isn’t live streaming the game, you’ll know when they’re playing against people online and doing things. So the way to practice is to play in offline mode.”
Kotaku reached out to Arc System Works for comment, but received no response prior to publication. However, Arc System Works producer Zack “Shini” Tan said on Twitter that he was “back in the office” and checking out the reports.
Meanwhile, the R-code exploit got so bad that VTuber’s Strive tournament, scheduled to start on January 6th, was postponed for the time being. Hopefully Arc System Works can wrap things up soon so people can play again.