Marvel Rivals developer NetEase has apologized to disgruntled players who were wrongly banned for cheating.

In a post on Discord, NetEase admitted to mistakenly labeling some as cheaters who were playing in compatibility layer programs even though they weren’t using cheating software. Unfortunately, this resulted in false bans, although NetEase did not say how many.

“We sincerely apologize for this situation and want to assure you that we do not and will not ban players who play fairly and without cheating,” NetEase said.

The developer said it had compiled a list of affected players and lifted their bans. “We have identified the specific reasons for these incorrect suspensions and have compiled a list of affected players,” it said. “We have lifted these bans and would like to sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this has caused.”

NetEase continued to insist that it is investing in improving its anti-cheat system and urged players to report cheaters if they encounter them. Here is the rest of the statement in full:

Our mission is to provide a fair, equitable and enjoyable gaming environment for all players. Therefore, preventing and identifying fraudsters is one of our top priorities. We have invested significant manpower and resources to improve the speed and accuracy of our detection systems. With any detection system in progress, there is always room for improvement. We thank you for your support in overcoming this challenge. If you encounter fraudulent behavior, please report it immediately; Our reporting system will respond immediately. If you believe you have been wrongly blocked, you can contact our customer support team. We will examine your case and respond promptly. You can reach the support team either in-game or in Discord!

Thank you for your understanding and support!

The news comes ahead of the first season of Marvel Rivals and the arrival of the “Fantastic Four” playable characters, hinted at with a first image and a dedicated trailer planned for next week.

Marvel Rivals is a huge success for NetEase, acquiring 10 million players in just three days and 20 million in two weeks. The free-to-play, superhero team-based PvP shooter was released on December 6th on PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S. While Sony and Microsoft do not publish player numbers, Steam does make valve statistics available.

On Steam, Marvel Rivals peaked at 480,990 concurrent players during its launch weekend, enough to place it among the top five most played games on Valve’s platform. It’s the 20th highest concurrent player count ever seen on Steam, ahead of games like Helldivers 2, Grand Theft Auto 5 and Destiny 2.

Marvel Rivals launched with Season 0, with Season 1 scheduled for January 9th according to the in-game Battle Pass countdown timer. Check out IGN’s Marvel Rivals review to find out what we think. And keep an eye on the latest Marvel Rivals codes Get free skins and vote for the strongest Marvel Rivals characters in our Community tier list.

Wesley is the UK news editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].