George K.
When you imagine video game cheats, you likely aren’t remembering the Up, Down, A, B, etc. codes used to put in-game advantages in for your player character. Those cheats still exist for many games, like the GTA series, but the sophistication of player advantages in video games has changed dramatically and made some players who can take advantage much more formidable.
These cheats, often referred to as hacks, are unethical or immoral to some, and to others, just another part of the game. Whatever your stance is, it’s good to know what hacks are out there so you can either learn to use them yourself, or what to look out for.
Trainers
Trainers are a type of cheat that allows a player character to receive advantages from a system designed to provide them with significant in-game advantages. These advantages can range from improved skillsets, uncapped level progression, adjusted items or weapons, and even create new cheats like invincibility. This is often a common type of hack/cheat for single-player games as there is little interference from any kind of cheat monitoring system, but some games can be changed for online play with the use of trainers. Trainers are a secondary software application that runs parallel to the game being played and allows you to make your character much stronger or effective, and thus, makes you much better at a game. Trainers can even be adapted to the code of the game so they both boot at the same time.
Aimbots
Anyone who has ever played an online FPS knows what an aimbot is. Aimbots are one of the most notorious hacks you can find for video games, and they can be quite fun too in all honesty. Even if you don’t agree with the use of them, gaming aimbots can be an incredibly useful hack for an online match. Some people use them to improve their standing or max out the leveling of a weapon to unlock achievements/attachments, some people do it to grief, and some people use them as a means of griefing a griefer, but whatever it is aimbots are a hack that everyone should be aware of. Using automated target acquisition to scope out and shoot players, along with calibration and some tricky hiding for the games detection system makes it quite intricate.
Macros and Scripts
Macros or scripts, as they’re more commonly referred to, is a way to automate the actions of your character. This is useful for games where grinding or farming is an integral part of the game’s fundamental play style, so it’s highly appealing if you hate having to do menial tasks in MMORPGs. It’s a good way to automate simple functions that allow you to collect gold or in-game currency, as well as level up in simple ways. The use of a script to automate these functions is considered one of the more “victimless” hacks or cheats because, in essence, you’ve just used code to make your player do things while you’re away from the game. Still, some consider it an egregious form of cheating, but others think it’s rather harmless.
Lag Switch
Back to the more apparent uses of hacks for a video game is the lag switch. The slow, stuttering movement of your character or another player’s character in an online multiplayer game is an example of when data being received or transmitted is interrupted in bursts which gives the player using the lag switch a heightened advantage knowing that they can outmaneuver the opponent. Being able to disrupt the connection at will allows a player, usually in an FPS, to appear choppy in motion, making it harder to see or hit. Lag switching is an example of some hardware and software hacking at the same time, and there are even adjustments being made to hardware on consoles to prevent it, but of course, hackers always find a way around it.
Stacking
Stacking is a form of cheating that isn’t really hacking but can be under the right circumstances. What stacking means is simply beefing up one side of a competitive match to favor one or more teams against the other(s). In an FPS, this is what happens when higher-level teammates are grouped together against weaker ones. Stacking can be done by altering game settings, or by using a script or some kind of legitimate hack, but it’s a good one to know if you want to team up with your high-level buddies.
No one is going to argue whether hacking or cheating in games is right or wrong here, it’s just better to acknowledge that with any software (or hardware), there’s bound to be exploits of varying degrees. In any case, these are some popular and handy to know hacks for 2021.
