Marvel Rivals will refund ranked points to cheater reporters

Marvel Rivals is turning cheater reports into ranked-point refunds, a move that treats stolen ladder progress as damage worth restoring, not just bad behavior to punish later.

NetEase said its new Anti-Cheat Rank Compensation System would begin a trial run in the week of May 28, 2026. Under the policy, a player who runs into a cheater, successfully reports that player, and gets the violation verified will receive a full refund of all Ranked Points lost in that match. That makes the anti-cheat push more tangible for anyone grinding Competitive, because it connects enforcement to the one thing ranked players care about most: protecting their rating.

The new refund system landed alongside a harder line on penalties. On May 25, NetEase said it had detected unauthorized third-party enhancements after a weekend update and moved into what it called an immediate, targeted purge. Accounts confirmed to be involved were permanently banned, and the company warned that serious repeat or organized violations could lead to account bans, device bans, and IP bans. NetEase also dismissed rumors that the anti-cheat could be bypassed with launch parameters, saying the protection starts with the game client and cannot be turned off separately.

The scale of the crackdown showed how seriously NetEase is taking the problem. Secondary reporting put the May ban wave at roughly 485 to 500 accounts, with one outlet also noting three device bans. The public list of punished accounts ran from Bronze and Silver all the way up through Diamond, Grandmaster, Celestial, and One Above All, which underlined that cheating was not limited to throwaway low-rank accounts.

This is not NetEase’s first attempt to restore fairness rather than just issue punishments after the fact. Earlier in 2026, Marvel Rivals introduced an anti-throwing compensation system that returned ranked points when a teammate’s malicious throwing was confirmed. The new cheater-refund feature extends that idea, making the ranking ladder feel more restorative when a match has been poisoned by someone breaking the rules.

The timing matters because Marvel Rivals has built a huge competitive audience in a short span. The game launched globally on December 6, 2024 with Season 0: Dooms’ Rise, 33 heroes, and Quick Match and Competitive modes from day one. By February 2025, NetEase said the game had surpassed 40 million players. In a free-to-play shooter with that kind of scale, ranked fairness is not a side issue. It is the trust system holding the whole ladder together, and Marvel Rivals is now saying a cheater should not get to spend that trust for free.