'We will take measures to vanquish this nefarious behavior': Marvel Rivals will ban console players who use a mouse and keyboard

The creators of Marvel Rivals don't want console players swimming in the same Jeff-infested pool as PC players. Or using our equipment to gain an advantage.

That's evident after an announcement made today on Marvel Rivals' Steam page, where NetEase characterizes the use of keyboard or mouse adapters as a form of cheating.

"We believe that gaining an unjust advantage through such methods significantly impacts the gaming experience for our players. Therefore, whether on PC or console, we will take measures to vanquish this nefarious behavior," the post dramatically promises. "Penalties for users of keyboard and mouse adapters may include temporary or permanent account suspensions, removal from leaderboards, or other punishments depending on the circumstances."

Anyone playing on a gamepad in Marvel Rivals (including on PC) has access to aim assist, a feature built into the game that's adjustable through six specific settings. What NetEase implies in the above quote is that using one of these adapters allows an infringing console player access to the best of both worlds: the fine control of using a mouse and the use of aim assist, since to Marvel Rivals that mouse is masquerading as a controller.

The adapters in question are small boxes that sit between a console and a paired controller, designed to allow console players to use mice, keyboards, or other USB input devices on platforms not designed to accept them. Today's consoles like the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 do natively support keyboard and mouse connectivity, but support in games is left up to developers and still rare. Adapters cost $100-150 and are freely available through retailers like Amazon. One genuine appeal of these tools is that they allow players who strongly prefer a certain gamepad to use it on a platform that doesn't support it.

In its minor threat, NetEase went as far as to name names, manufacturers that it sees as enabling rulebreaking: XIM, Cronus Zen, Titan Two, KeyMander, and Brook Sniper, are examples of emulators that could lead to punishment if used. NetEase flaunts its ability to detect these devices—it's not unusual for a studio to project strength in order to discourage cheating—but what's surprising is that its method may rely on human moderators to some degree, saying "We have forged a strong detection tool and couple[d] with the keen judgment of our watchful human eyes to accurately identify those using keyboard and mouse adapters."

Players themselves can use Marvel Rivals' somewhat hidden replay tool to spot suspected cheaters; the game stores replays of many of your previous quick or competitive matches, allowing you to spectate from the perspective of any player and retroactively report them for misconduct. The existence of a replay tool is necessary infrastructure for many modern anti-cheat systems, and it could mean that player telemetry (like mouse movements) are being stored and analyzed in some fashion. Valve's been doing this in competitive FPSes with VACnet, a machine learning-driven system, for nearly a decade.

Though Marvel Rivals supports crossplay, the wall between console and PC players is higher than just hardware: console players cannot play competitive mode with PC players. Though you can queue with console friends in other modes of play, competitive crossplay is off limits.

On the FAQ section of the Cronus Zen kb/m adapter's website, the creators reassure that the device "does not 'hack' anything in the game or console," but admit that "it is always possible that you can be banned or blocked at any time without notice or warning" when using a third-party device while playing online games on a console. It also reassures players that because the Cronus Zen piggybacks on an official, connected controller to send inputs, "the console always believes that you are gaming with a controller meant for the console you are playing on."

Other competitive shooter studios have taken similar steps against input emulation devices. In 2023, Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2.0 cracked down on use of these devices (Call of Duty is notably one of the few shooters with official mouse and keyboard support on PlayStation). For Rainbow Six Siege, Ubisoft in 2023 introduced a system it called Mousetrap, not merely banning input emulation devices, but doing something much more cruel: introducing input lag against offending players, turning their advantage into a disadvantage.