Playing fighting games online in ranked modes is already stressful and frustrating enough as is, but when people go out of their way to rig the system in their favor, it can be maddening even to simply watch.
That seems to be the case amid Kombat League in Mortal Kombat 1 right now, as extremely questionable footage of a particular player apparently abusing a lag switch has surfaced. Continue on to see it and decide for yourself if nefarious acts are indeed going on.
The footage below was posted by MKJavier on Sunday, and depicts his bout with a Shang Tsung competitor who goes by the name “TrustedKeviN.” The match flows on flawlessly until Javier lands the beginnings of a combo, at which point game-halting lag makes continuing offense impossible.
Things suddenly continue to flow fine once again, but each and every time Javier scores an opening, the action slows way down. You can see it all in the embed here, but you may want to take some blood pressure medication first:
This pc player called TrustedKeviN is cheating in Kombat League. Everytime i land a combo the ping got so high and in his combos the ping was normal.
I have all the set recorded if want to see it. @tylerlansdown @NetherRealm @NRSEsports @noobde @MortalKombat @wbgames @NRSEsports pic.twitter.com/i2xqtzrtMB— Panther | MKJavierMK (@MKJavierMK) November 17, 2024
Thanks to the expedited processing of information that comes with social media, the community is already responding to this suspicious activity. NetherRealm Studios Community Manager, Tyler Lansdown, responded Monday morning to the post by saying “Forwarded on,” and so we have confirmation that NetherRealm Studios is aware of this.
Others claimed that this TrustedKeviN was actually a second account of a known cheater named BriXsuS, who climbed to the very top of the Kombat League ladder back in June. While we can’t fully confirm or deny that this is the same player, they do both use Shang Tsung and appear to cheat in very similar ways:
This is the current #1 on the kombat league leaderboard by a wide margin with an insane win loss record. He’s been lag switching and desyncing to get wins.
Can we please report BriXsuS he’s easy to find just go on the leaderboard. I’m convinced the report button is for show pic.twitter.com/zjZwymGelf
— bcel (@beancel_) June 21, 2024
Unsavory online gameplay is unfortunately not restricted to Mortal Kombat alone as we recall the relatively recent incident during the Capcom Pro Tour in which one of the competitors seemed to be using scripts that would automatically make their character perform perfectly in certain situations.