Blizzard bans Overwatch cheaters who used a hack called Pentagon

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The Overwatch Police Department doesn’t play around.

Blizzard has banned over 200 players following the detection of a hack called Pentagon. The tool allowed players to see through walls, use aimbots, and automatically block enemy ultimates.

The news was shared on the Overwatch P.D.’s Twitter yesterday alongside a screengrab of the hack’s sale page. Pentagon offered a bundle of cheats like Extra Sensory Perception (ESP), which shows enemy outlines, and aimbots. Accounts who used Pentagon were permanently banned.

Pentagon was sold in two tiers with different functionalities. The first level allowed its users to see enemy outlines even through Sombra’s invisibility, added an aimbot, and could be customized for each skill. It cost $100 per month to use. The second tier offered an “enemy ult auto block” and a cooldown check for $155 a month.

The Overwatch P.D. shared screengrabs from Pentagon’s Discord server. “Got banned,” one user said. “Only used it in training. No chance of being reported in that account.”

Individual hackers can be reported through Blizzard’s in-game system, but players must actively notice the hacker and act on it. A general detection, on the other hand, doesn’t need any prompting from the community.

Earlier this week, the Overwatch P.D. reported that Blizzard detected a functionality known as “silent aim” or “magic bullet.” The hack would redirect projectiles to enemies regardless of crosshair positioning. “If you wanted to buy this it would cost you $600 a month,” they said. “That’s the top of the line cheat, basically.”

The Overwatch Police Department is an account spearheaded by Mohamed “Gamerdoc” Al-Sharifi, alongside a devoted crew of anti-hackers. He works in parallel with Blizzard to curb cheating in Overwatch, but he also communicates and relays information to the company.

“Blizzard is aware of what I am doing and I am assuming Jeff Kaplan does too,” he said in an interview. “In an email, one of my Blizzard contacts said they had a meeting with Jeff about the previous information I sent. I think they like what I am doing so long as it’s not a witch hunt.”