Genshin Impact, a free-to-play action RPG developed and published by miHoYo, released recently in September 2020, was doing rounds on the internet after alleged rumors that it is a spyware program disguised as a game and has also been accused of stealing personal data. These rumors started when some users noticed the game running in the background even after shutting it down or uninstalling it.

The anti-cheat system used in Genshin Impact asks users for permission to have Kernel-level access to their system. While this is similar to Valorant's anti-cheating system, the fact that Genshin Impact's background runs even after uninstalling became a hot topic as well as a matter of grave concern to many gamers and internet users.

miHoYo, however, denied any such claims in a Reddit post which reads as follows: “We had previously received feedback from some players that when opening Genshin Impact client on PC, the game's anti-cheat program would automatically run in the background, and that the anti-cheat program would continue to run after exiting or uninstalling the game.”

“This issue has now been resolved. The game's anti-cheat program will immediately end once the game client is closed or uninstalled. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused by this issue. We will do our utmost to prevent such issues from occurring again in the future and will continue optimizing our workflow to bring the highest-quality gaming experience possible to all of our Travelers.”

Chinese Gaming News Portal, 'Game Watch Impress,' also stated that they ran their own survey which showed that the data read by the anti-cheat software does not get saved or uploaded anywhere and also claims that this problem did not appear for PS4 or mobile users.

This pretty much deems the game to be ‘safe-to-play,’ but while the company has apologized for any issues caused to the players, they didn’t make any changes to the anti-cheat system. This still raises a few concerns for gamers.

Written by: Nihal Rian Dias