Windows 10 Fall Creators Update Debuts 'TruePlay' Gaming Anti-Cheat System

TruePlay is an anti-cheat system that is meant to give developers a relatively easy way to thwart the efforts of those prone to exhibiting unsportsmanlike conduct on the virtual battlefield/race track/sports arena. According to Microsoft, TruePlay runs as a "protected process", and should help alleviate common cheats like aimbots.

"A game enrolled in TruePlay will run in a protected process, which mitigates a class of common attacks," writes Microsoft in an MSDN posting. "Additionally, a Windows service will monitor gaming sessions for behaviors and manipulations that are common in cheating scenarios. These data will be collected, and alerts will be generated only when cheating behavior appears to be occurring."

Microsoft also lays out the following functions that are featured in TruePlay:

EnableActiveGameMonitoring: Indicate whether or not the game is operating in a mode where cheat monitoring is desired. This doesn't necessarily stop data collection but will mark any captured data or anti-cheat system failures as ignorable.

GetGameMonitoringPermissionState: Get the current game monitoring permission state on the device. If the currently signed in user has not given permission or if a system administrator has disabled game monitoring, this will return false. When this returns false, no monitoring data will be transmitted or shared.

ReportGameActivity: Trigger a challenge to the local system that the TruePlay system is active. If the anti-cheat system isn't already running, it will be started. Games should call this once every few minutes during game play.

SetGameActivityCorrelationId: Allow the game to set a correlation ID. Developers can use these IDs to correlate TruePlay data logs with the game’s own session logs.

Microsoft goes on to add that consumer privacy will be protected, and that it will work to prevent false positives that could impeded the effectiveness of TruePlay. All of these data metrics will only be shared with developers, as to keep them out of the hands of the very people that Microsoft is trying to stop.

While all of this sounds great in theory, there's one big problem with TruePlay -- it is only available for games that were developed for the Universal Windows Platform (UWP). The library of UWP games isn't exactly overflowing with an abundance of titles, but it should at least mean that gamers should have a more enjoyable online multiplayer experience with games like Forza Motorsport 7.