Xbox and Windows players are currently unable to use ranked mode
Those who tried to go back and play a good Killer Instinct in recent days found themselves in an unexpected situation: they cannot play the main online mode at all.
The Killer Instinct community is currently reporting that a hacker allegedly broke the game’s online ranked modes, rendering them completely unusable.
If you try to queue for a match right now on Xbox or the Windows version of KI, the game will simply crash trying to sync the ladder info to the server before failing, and there’s no way around that.
This currently doesn’t affect the Steam version of the game, which has a separate leaderboard, but most active players use Xbox Live.
PAIR |nickyfgc was one of the first to sound the alarm that something was seriously wrong in a video to help raise awareness, and he’s understandably worried about the community he’s been a part of since KI launched in 2013.
“This is a big deal for our community because ranking is a big reason people play,” NickyFGC told EventHubs. “Despite what people think, we have a VERY active community with weekly tournaments and prize pools, and qualifying was a great way to warm up for those events. Players can’t just hop on and find games anymore.”
The suspected hackers in this situation have reportedly been causing problems for years at KI by adding a host of fake users to the top of ranked leaderboards while posing as another player.
However, it seems that the leaderboards have probably reached their breaking point and now no one can play.
“This person single-handedly not only removed our main reason for playing ranked, but also removed the entire mode,” said NickyFGC.
We don’t know if the people involved were actively trying to take down the online service or not, but this is the current result either way.
Thankfully, other online modes like Exhibition and lobbies are still working, so players can battle each other using them, though some are reporting their player ranks have been reset and connection times to servers may be longer.
This is still a huge problem for the game because even though Killer Instinct was first released almost a decade ago, there is still an active and dedicated player base that is directly affected by this hack.
Killer Instinct fans are also justifiably worried that this won’t be fixed, and ranked mode will remain permanently broken.
The game hasn’t received an update (other than adding Xbox backwards compatibility) since March 2018, and previous KI developer Iron Galaxy is no longer working on the series.
After 5 1/2 years of being a legacy title, Microsoft may not see the KI hack as a big enough priority to fix it (since they didn’t before), and that’s even if they knew how to fix it right now. . also
There is at least one big ray of hope that Xbox will do so because, unlike other older pirated games like Call of Duty or Titanfall, there is no newer entry for players to turn to.
This Killer Instinct is the newest and is currently broken on its main platforms.
Xbox’s Phil Spencer too he talked several times in the past about wanting to do another Killer Instinctand here they are Rumors that something is in the works.
It wouldn’t exactly be the best looking for Microsoft if they were to ship a new KI in the near future when the last one was left in a broken state.
If all else fails, the community will likely be forced to switch to the Steam version of Killer Instinct, but it’s also not a happy solution for players who would lose years of work and progress.
Fans and gamers can help make Microsoft aware of the issue and show that there is a demand for it to be fixed by messaging. xbox support on Twitter and sending reports to the Xbox support website.
