Gunzilla’s Kestrel anti-cheat runs first ban wave in Off The Grid

In Brief:

• Gunzilla Games’ in-house anti-cheat, Kestrel, has run its first ban wave in Off The Grid (official site) on Teardrop Island.
• Macro and recoil scripting accounted for 55% of the bans, hardware and input remapping for 27% and automated aim assistance for 12%.
• The studio said Kestrel will keep running in every match and carry out rolling bans as its models are refined.

Gunzilla Games has carried out the first ban wave with Kestrel, the proprietary anti-cheat system it built for Off The Grid.

“Kestrel just ran its first ban wave on Teardrop 🛡️” the official Off The Grid account said on X. The studio also posted a developer update on Steam News titled “Kestrel Executes First Official Ban Wave.”

The banned accounts lost access to the game permanently, Gunzilla said.

What got players banned

Macro and recoil scripting made up the largest share, at 55% of bans. That category covers automated recoil compensation, rapid jitter firing scripts and automated movement loops.

Hardware and input remapping came next at 27%. Gunzilla listed unlawful controller converter remapping and third-party mouse macro configurations under that heading.

Automated aim assistance accounted for 12% of bans. It includes rotational aimlock, silent aim and automated targeting systems.

Most of the volume was input manipulation. Recoil scripts and converter remapping together made up 82% of the wave, well ahead of aimbot-style tools.

Fifteen billion data segments first

Kestrel didn’t ban anyone right away. Gunzilla said the system first ran a passive data-collection phase that evaluated more than 15 billion gameplay data segments across the game’s match network.

The studio said it mapped movement curves, server-side data and signatures at that scale to build a baseline separating genuine human play from artificial assistance. Only after that did it trigger the ban wave.

The pitch is behavioral detection. “It learns how real Zeroes move. It adapts when cheats try something new. It knows the difference between a cracked player and a script,” the Off The Grid account said when it introduced the system.

An earlier post said Kestrel “watches how real hands move and flags what no hand can do.” It added: “New account, new machine? Same movement, the ban still finds you.”

The GUNZ account posted a clip of the system at work in a match with the caption: “A 5 second warning, then Kestrel anti-cheat in @playoffthegrid 🦾”

More bans to come

Gunzilla said Kestrel runs around the clock in every match on Teardrop Island. The studio said it’ll keep refining the models behind the system and that bans will continue on a rolling basis.

The studio hasn’t disclosed the total number of accounts banned in the first wave.

Background

Cheating has dogged Off The Grid since it opened up to a wider player base, with some players calling matches unplayable. Gunzilla had already upgraded its detection systems before rolling out an anti-cheat of its own.

Off The Grid is in Early Access on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.

The studio introduced Kestrel with a short line from the game’s X account: “Actively hunting on Teardrop, built by @GunzillaGames.”