News Battlefield 2042 follows Valorant's footsteps, now requires Secure Boot to play the game on PC

[Admin]

Battlefield 2042 introduces Secure Boot enforcement, requiring all players to have the security feature turned on to play the game. The change will prevent cheats from sneaking in during the Windows boot process.

Battlefield 2042 follows Valorant's footsteps, now requires Secure Boot to play the game on PC : Read more

 

[hotaru251]

if a dev is worried about cheating...don't make competitive games as people always gonna cheat in em :|

 

[derekullo]

It's possible to install Windows 11 with secure boot off given the right software.
We use Quest K2000 for imaging at work and I'm able to push any image I want to almost any computer I want without any issue.
For example last year my boss wanted a Windows 11 23H2 image on a computer with a i7-3770K and a geforce 970.
The motherboard didn't support Secure boot.
K2000 had no problems pushing my custom gaming Windows 11 image that we use for gaming computers.

Edit: When I tried manually updating that gaming computer to Windows 11 24H2 it did give a compatibility warning and wouldn't do the update.

 

[logainofhades]

People actually play Battlefield 2042? 😛

 

[UnforcedERROR]

if a dev is worried about cheating...don't make competitive games as people always gonna cheat in em :|

What exactly is the logic here? It's like saying car companies shouldn't make cars because people will have accidents. You try to prevent it, not eradicate it.

People actually play Battlefield 2042? 😛

Right? Battlefield's been crashing a burning for a while now from what I understand. Last BF I played was 4 and that was practically what killed my enthusiasm for the series.

 

[DS426]

Another once-great FPS franchise that -- like all of their other games - EA has managed to spoil.

Aside from that high-level comment, I don't have much to say about this change. Yes, enable Secure Boot if your motherboard supports it.

 

[coolitic]

I remember being unable to dual-boot w/ Secure Boot turned on, dunno if things have changed since then.

It's also not really "secure" to begin w/, last I checked.

 

[mac_angel]

fix your title

 

[JayGau]

if a dev is worried about cheating...don't make competitive games as people always gonna cheat in em :|

This comment is so wrong on so many levels. Please tell me it was a joke. It's like saying if store owners are worried about shoplifting... don't set up security cameras, as people always gonna steal anyway.

 

[Thunder64]

What exactly is the logic here? It's like saying car companies shouldn't make cars because people will have accidents. You try to prevent it, not eradicate it.


Right? Battlefield's been crashing a burning for a while now from what I understand. Last BF I played was 4 and that was practically what killed my enthusiasm for the series.

I found Battlefield 1 to be fun. I tried BF V during the beta and never bothered again.

 

[bigdragon]

EA's anti-cheat systems are primarily intended to protect the progression grind and microtransaction systems. Battlefield was a ton of fun back when it was all about vehicles, teamwork, and objectives instead of getting the next unlock as quickly as possible. Seeing tanks spawn and despawn extra armor depending on the driver's unlocks turned me off to the whole franchise a long time ago. The unlock grind is a carrot on a stick you will never catch.

Cheat developers should look up Secure Boot customization. Many vendors and the US government have published guides on how to add your own DB certificate and sign your own executables. Most UEFI configs have options to insert custom certificates. Secure Boot isn't a way to restrict a user from willingly doing something they want to do.

 

[TheSecondPower]

I usually turn secure boot off because I haven't figured out how to dual boot Linux with it on. So games that require just won't work for me.

 

[BryanFRitt]

I usually turn secure boot off because I haven't figured out how to dual boot Linux with it on. So games that require just won't work for me.

It can be said that Secure Boot is Microsoft's way of infecting the BIOS. It's adds extra work for Linux every time there's new kernel, etc...

 

[umeng2002_2]

I thought secure boot was for security.

 

[SkyBill40]

"If players attempt to load the game with a Secure Boot-supported machine but don't have the security feature turned on, Battlefield 2042 will prompt the user to turn on the feature. EA has also provided a support article telling users how to turn the feature on in the UEFI/BIOS."

This isn't accurate at all. I updated my game last night and my secure boot is currently off. It booted the game just fine. It also didn't stop the four known and documented Chinese cheaters who were in the game, either.

 

[cryoburner]

It won't be long before anti-cheat systems become largely ineffective for competitive games, as AI-based cheats have the potential to be virtually impossible to detect, and capable of running from an external device. Even if a system or console were completely locked down, as long as the AI can get a video feed of the screen, even from a camera aimed at it, and has some way of inputting user inputs, there will be no way of definitively determining whether a game is being controlled by an AI or a human player, short of directly observing the person playing the game. So long as the AI were trained not to behave in completely inhuman ways, it would be hard to distinguish between it and a good player, and any attempt to do so would undoubtedly result in lots of false-positives. About the only potential option would be invasive methods like having cameras recording video of every player to make sure their physical inputs align with what's happening in-game, or having players perform live in-person.