Two members of the Turkish organization Eternal Fire’s academy roster have been cut from the organization after the FACEIT matchmaking platform handed the duo two-year bans for enabling cheat-protected console commands.
Ahmet “cyber” Akpınar and Bilgihan “Depact” Ayaz have both been released by the organization after receiving two-year bans on FACEIT. “We would like to inform the public that we have cut ties and terminated our contracts with the players,” Eternal Fire posted in a statement, “who we are sure are staying away from any situation that will affect the game negatively, such as cheating.” Many interpret the second part of Eternal Fire’s statement as an attempt to lessen the impact of the FACEIT ban on the players’ Counter-Strike careers.
FACEIT posted on Sunday, April 7 that it was “aware of an exploit/bug in the game,” and assured users that “appropriate actions will be taken against those exploiting it.” The exploit reportedly allowed players that utilized it to enter commands into public server consoles that would permit them to see opponents through walls.
FACEIT’s “banning” policy states that “use of any (game) exploits to gain an unfair advantage” constitutes as cheating and will result a two year automatic ban. The bans for both cyber and Depact are currently set to lift on April 8, 2026, “if no attempts to evade the ban [are] made.”
The bans have sparked some conversations amongst the CS2 community about the severity of the punishment. While some argue the bans could be career-enders for young academy players, others argue FACEIT’s rules and punishments have been clear from the beginning. While the bans prevent the players from playing on one of CS2‘s premier matchmaking platforms, it doesn’t explicitly prevent them from having pro careers, though there’s a strong likelihood these bans will have an effect on them.
