‘Guilty Gear Strive’ streamers claim game is “unplayable” due to hackers

Many Guilty Gear Strive streamers have said the game is currently “unplayable” due to hackers taking advantage of a recently discovered exploit.

The bug currently allows hackers to remotely change the names of other players in the middle of a match, causing their games to crash (via Vice).

The hack uses a player’s unique ID (or R-Code) that contains information about stats, activity and match history. As soon as a Guilty Gear Strive player appears online, they can be targeted by the hack. Despite many streamers trying to hide their R-Code, it can be easily viewed by any one of their in-game followers.

The exploit also reportedly allows hackers to push through chat messages that look like they’re coming from the affected players. The recent addition of crossplay to Guilty Gear Strive means both PC and console gamers can be targeted.

Guilty Gear Strive pro Hotashi claims that hackers are now using the exploit to “cause the GGST client to have some sort of leak, slowing the game to an unplayable crawl. This occurs even in training mode, and doesn’t happen with steam in offline mode, they wrote on Twitter.

“I’m going to be laying off of Strive until the R-Code exploit gets fixed. I would like some more communication from Arc System Works about this as more and more streamers are getting hit,” added streamer Remi Celeste.

I’m going to be laying off of Strive until the R-Code exploit gets fixed. I would like some more communication from @ArcSystemWorksU about this as more and more streamers are getting hit (JP streamers included now). Might be a blessing in disguise? Was getting burnt out…

— REMI CELESTE @ HOME ????ALIEN VTUBER ???? (@RemiCeleste) January 2, 2023

Despite weeks of reports about the latest R-Code hack, Arc System Works has yet to address the problem or release a fix. However, producer Zack Shini did take to Twitter yesterday to confirm he was “back in [the] office [and] looking through all the reports.”

While hacks are never fun, this one for Guilty Gear Strive comes at a particularly bad time since the qualifying period for Arc System Works’ grand tournament is nearing its end. The final qualifying tournament for the Guilty Gear Strive event, which comes with a £166,000 grand prize, takes place next month ahead of the main event in March.

In other news, atreamer MissMikkaa has finally defeated two versions of Elden Ring boss Malenia, during a challenge that sees her playing the games simultaneously using different controllers – one of which is a dance pad.