Wallhacks are known by many names ‘ESP’ or ‘Extrasensory Perception’ (being able to perceive the unperceivable using extraordinary means) being one of them, ‘VAC’ or ‘Visual Assistance Cheat’ being another or simply ‘Wallhack’, by far the most descriptive and popular term used to describe this game hacking method, as it literally allows its users to see through walls and objects on Android, iOS, PC and very rarely Console games. - Video version of the Article.
The use of a wallhack is known as ‘wallhacking’ and will usually allow for far more than just seeing enemy and friendly players through walls: Most of these game hacks will also display lootable items, vehicles, explosives, health bars, 2d radar hacks, name tags and more information besides the colored boxes of cham overlays to highlight players. Besides the aimbot, wall hacks are the most popular cheat in online multiplayer shooters and used to great effect to get more kills, farm faster and progress more easily in many shooter games. ESPs are also used outside of shooter games, but more rarely. - Video version of the Article.
How a Wallhack works
Wallhacks / ESP / VAC cheats work because of the way that all online shooters have to work in order to deliver a competitive gameplay experience: To reduce lag and latency, all graphics have to be processed on the game-client (a players gaming device), which means that the environment/map around the player has to be stored on their device and therefore can be scanned for objects, such as players, items ect. So with other words: All the information one needs to create an wallhack necessarily are available on the device. All the hack does is scan for objects in a devices graphics memory, then highlight that information is a way that is convenient to the player, such as boxes, squares, overlays / chams ect. Aimbots go one step further and use that information to automatically aim and shoot guns.
Radar Hacks explained
Radar hacks are basically minimap hacks: They will show you a 2D map of your surroundings and highlight enemies and allied player / NPCs on said map, allowing you to easily notice enemies behind you that the 3D wallhack is not picking up depending on your field of view. The term ‘radar’ hacks comes from the old time radar and sonar screens that scan the surroundings for objects and display it as 2D data. An advanced warning system can be integrated as well that detects if you are visible to any enemies and if they are aiming at you by analyzing their field of view. However, aim and vision warning systems are usually only included in the best quality of premium cheating software and will almost always require you to purchase a subscription to download and use.
What features do Wallhacks commonly include?
There are lots of features that can be included in ESP / Wallhacks. Anyting that can be shown or highlighted that can give a player an advantage is possible. These features may vary from game to game, but here are some of the most common ones:
- Enemy highlight Boxes / Overlays / Chans configuration: size, color, opacity ect.
- What objects are highlighted: players only, items, explosibes, vehicles, loot, objectives ect.
- Show / hide player names, health bars, distance in ft/m
- Activate/deactivate enemy view / enemy aim warning system. (Warns you if you are visible or being aimed at by enemy players.)
- Show enemy class, equipment, hero name, character name, level ect.
- Show skeletons. (Allows you to see where they are heading, what they are doing exactly, which is something that colored boxes cannot do.)
- Other game-dependent important information that can give you an advantage and is available on the game client.
Wallhacks and Bans
Wallhacks and VAC software are a lot harder to detect for other players than aimbots. Usually a good wallhack user will not necessary be able to dominate the game, depending on skill, but will do significantly better than he would without wall hacks. However, ESP cheats can still be detected by automated software scanning for overlays ect. Also there are some dead giveaways for the use of Wall hacks that can still easily get a player reported when using this kind of tool / software. However, among the available ways of cheating in online multiplayer shooters the wallhack is most certainly the hardest to ban and undoubtedly the most fun to use as it does not take all of the skill out of playing a shooter or FPS game.
How to tell if someone is using a Wallhack
- Player is looking at walls too much. (Because they can see through walls.)
- Aiming and/or shooting enemies through walls. (Dead giveaway.)
- Pre-aiming corners as if they knew that someone is coming that way. (Because they do.)
- Having insane, superhuman, supernatural map awareness and near-psychic skills. (Nuff said.)
- Not looking around, checking corners, not using the player field of view to scan for enemies. (Because they don’t have to. They already know where everyone is or is not.)
- Player suddenly goes from average to pro player skills within a day. (Because they bought a good wall hack.)
- Any of the features of the aimbot. (Because a lot of the time, now always,those go hand in hand. But generally they can also be bought on their own.)
Video: Game Wallhacks
Sources / References
[1] https://hackerbot.net/wiki/11-game-hack
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheating_in_online_games
[3] https://www.4players.de/cs.php/anticheat/-/185/16642/index.html [German]
[4] Experience from using https://www.artificialaiming.net/ for years. [Not Sponsored]
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Aimbot