Watch Dogs 2 has recently made its debut, encountering both critical acclaim and inversely proportional sales - at least for now. The game features a living open world, achieving what the original promised but never delivered, with both single-player and multi-player modes being praised by their quality.

And when there is a semblance of multiplayer, there must also be an anti-cheating mechanism. Watch Dogs 2 makes use of EasyAntiCheat, which has, embedded in its TOS - and even on its features page - a field that claims "Client data analysis to identify anomalies in the game process runtime" is used to enforce it anti-cheat detection mechanisms. What it basically means is that EasyAntiCheat installs a driver in kernel mode and a service that monitors your systems' operating files (when Watch Dogs 2 is running). This mechanism is also running even when you're in single-player-only - and even offline - modes, meaning that you're not getting out of its crosshairs no matter how you are playing the game. The addition of file-integrity checks at the start of the game, so as to detect any changes to the games' files also precludes modding, with some injection-type modding also finding troubles in being able to access the game, due to it checking game memory and system memory as well. Popular applications such as Afterburner and OBS have their overlay and recording capabilities disabled, and Cheat Engine is also not working - though that just means EasyAntiCheat is doing its job.

EasyAntiCheat TOS:

1. EasyAntiCheat is not compatible with any anti-cheat programs other than VAC, therefore you must not run EasyAntiCheat if you wish to play with any other anti-cheat at the same time. The user is fully responsible in case his/her game account or cdkey gets banned or refused by the game, EasyAntiCheat or any other anti-cheat.

2. EasyAntiCheat finds game cheats by scanning games' memory, the system memory and verifying original game files on disk to ensure they have not been modified. Only games' folders (and subfolders) are verified to contain original game data. EasyAntiCheat may replace or remove permanently any modified or custom game files found in games' folders (and subfolders). The use of any custom models, textures, sprites or other modified game files may lead to permanent ban if they can be considered to give the player an unfair advantage over other players.

3. EasyAntiCheat will take screenshots of your game screen and upload them on public servers, viewable to everyone, if the server provider wishes so. The author of this software and EasyAntiCheat takes no responsibility of screenshots captured outside the game screen. If any personal or harmful information is captured into a screenshot, the user is fully responsible of the happened incident and any consequences it may result in. (In case this happens to you, please inform your server provider to remove unwanted screenshots from the server.)

4. EasyAntiCheat will scan system registry to detect forbidden modifications, settings or other features enabled to the game or graphic card drivers.

The EasyAntiCheat TOS, as you can see, does a pretty good job of exculpating the company, by making it loud and clear (as loud and clear can be when you're talking about TOS that no-one-reads-but-definitely-should) what the application does. Of course, that also means that unless you're privy to bypassing this kind of mechanisms, you have no way of saying "No" to these other than not playing the game.

It needs to be said EasyAntiCheat is a legit anti-hacking, anti-cheating software, though - it's been used in eSports (such as Counter Strike, Warface, and others) for years, and professionals willingly submit themselves to this kind of constraints and TOS in an environment that is, understandably, controlled (and apparently, only in this kind of environments - and Counter Strike ones in particular - does the application take and upload screenshots, at the behest of the organizing party). But it seems that this anti-cheat mechanism is operating even in single-player offline mode, which simply removes from the player the ability to maintain his desired privacy. There should always be an option not to agree with the installation of this kind of applications, even if that were to mean no access to multi-player modes. I, for one, would make that trade willingly.

This looks like a possible way for Ubisoft to protect its monetizing programs with in-game purchases, which abound in Watch Dogs 2 - a way to prevent players from using exploits in the game that could harm the sales of in-game items.

Update Dec 2nd: For a way to disable EasyAntiCheat in Watch_Dogs 2, see this article.