December 7, 2024 A statement sent to PCGamesN confirms that an issue with ACE remaining on players' PCs after uninstalling Delta Force has now been resolved. The copy of this article has been updated to reflect that.
The day has finally arrived – Delta Force is out on Steam for all to play. Yes, it's technically in open beta, but with no end date in sight and an enormous wealth of content, this is basically an early access launch. The FPS is fighting its battle on two fronts with a large-scale multiplayer experience and an Escape From Tarkov-rivaling extraction mode, and when you combine that with it being free, it's unsurprising to see it doing huge launch day numbers on Steam. What is surprising, though, is its review rating, which is being massively dragged down by a barrage of players complaining about its anti-cheat.
Let's start with the positives first – FPS games. At the time of writing, it's only been out for a matter of hours, but it's already hit a ceiling with its peak concurrent player count 102,167. Once the weekend arrives, there's a good chance it'll break its own record.
As a Delta Force preview.
However, as mentioned, it's not all sunshine and rainbows. Given its popularity, Delta Force is suffering from a surprisingly low Steam score, and it's mostly down to one main culprit. Swathes of players are leaving negative reviews due to the game's anti-cheat. It's not because it's ineffective and Delta Force is ravaged by cheaters, but rather because it's a kernel-level anti-cheat software that installs itself onto your PC when you the game. Initially, it wouldn't automatically uninstall when you deleted Delta Force either.
The system, known as Anti-Cheat Expert, is widely used by a variety of other Tencent PC and mobile games – Delta Force is published by Timi Studio Group, a subsidiary of Tencent. While it plays an important role in Delta Force's commitment to catching all cheaters within 24 hours, a lot of players are worried about privacy issues.
Developer Team Jade has responded to some of these negative Steam reviews assuring players that Anti-Cheat Expert will not compromise their privacy. "We want to clarify that our anti-cheat tool only runs while the game is active," it says in one response. "We are aware of false alerts from certain security tools indicating that ACE is running when it is not, and we are actively working with said party to address this issue."
"Rest assured, our anti-cheating tool is developed with the sole purpose of combating cheating," it says in another. "Built with reliability and privacy at its core, the anti-cheat tool is designed to ensure a fair, fun, and secure gaming environment for players worldwide. They are not intended to access or misuse player information, nor are they associated with any political agendas."
A statement sent to PCGamesN after the publication of this piece also says that "we've resolved the issue where ACE wasn't being fully uninstalled when Delta Force was removed from the system. Now, uninstalling the game will automatically uninstall ACE as well."
Despite the assurances, the initial distrust in Delta Force's anti-cheat means that its launch day Steam rating is a disappointing 'mixed' score of 55%.
If you are planning to dive into Delta Force, or you're already battling it out, we've got plenty of guides to help you out, such as our recommendations for the Delta Force operators.
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