Arc Raiders cheating and a similar rise in unfair exploits have been addressed by developer Embark Studios, which promises new tools and punishments to help clean up the game.
In a post on the game's official Discord server, Embark community admin Ossen confirms, "We’ve seen the discussion around the topic of cheaters in ARC Raiders. Please know that we are taking this issue very seriously and are listening to, and acting on your feedback."
Your mileage may vary depending on what time, region, or platform you're playing from, and it's not as if in every raid you'll find unkillable people running around with full-auto sniper rifles or something, but there's ample evidence and uproar around the community indicating cheaters have become more of a problem. (Anecdotally, I've seen a few on PC myself.) With this in mind, Embark says it's ramping up anti-cheat measures.
"Over the next few weeks, we are implementing significant changes to our rulesets and deploying new detection mechanisms to identify and remove cheaters," the statement continues. "This includes updating our Anti-Cheat systems for improved detection and bans, as well as applying client-side fixes specifically addressing the 'out of map' glitch. Furthermore, we are introducing tools for streamers to help mitigate stream sniping."
These "out of map" exploits have become especially common since, unlike bespoke or even paid cheats, they require no setup. If you know where to go and what to do – usually some simple if unorthodox movement – you can gain an insurmountable advantage over other players, firing down on them with impunity from the glittering heights. These exploits should, thankfully, be easier to solve compared to the arms race of anti-cheat tech.
One potential hang-up that's not fully addressed by this – in fairness, early and currently Discord-only – statement is the nature of the mentioned bans. Arc Raiders has been notoriously soft on some cheaters thus far, often dishing out 30-day bans where many developers might order a permanent one. With Embark ramping up anti-cheat measures in general, it's possible we'll see bans become both harsher and more frequent.
I know some players, especially PC gamers, are also frustrated with mouse macros leading to instant-kills at the hands of semi-auto weapons like the Kettle rifle. It's unclear if this sort of issue will be covered under the described anti-cheat rule changes.
Embark previously hotfixed exploits that allowed Arc Raiders to glitch into rooms normally only accessible via special keys. The solution? Make the rooms fiery deathtraps unless properly unlocked. I look forward to seeing if out-of-bounds rats end up similarly deep fried.
