Arc Raiders devs explain why it's taken so long to ban cheaters

'Our responsibility is to act with fairness and accuracy'

Until it was patched last week, Arc Raiders had a serious problem with a duplication glitch. This exploit allowed players to infinitely duplicate essentially any item in the game, and it gained traction very quickly in the community. A number of streamers, including TheBurntPeanut, one of the game's biggest content creators, showed exactly how to do the exploit. If you're an optimist, this raises awareness so the devs could fix it quicker, but if you're not… Well, he's just encouraged his thousands-strong audience to do it themselves.

Embark Studios has finally started taking action against those who performed the exploit and benefited from it. In an official blog post, the team acknowledged the community's "desire for fast action," but explained that their "responsibility is, and must be, to act with fairness and accuracy." Therefore, they can only take action on what they can "define, prove, and stand behind." That involves "validating reports against data; confirming exploit usage, scope, and effect; separating accidental behavior from intentional abuse; and assessing the measurable impact on the economy and competitive integrity."

The reason it all took so long? Well, it's the first time they've "handled an incident of this nature at such scale in Arc Raiders. Rather than rushing, we chose to take the time needed to fully understand the situation and make sure our response was consistent with our values and expectations."

In terms of punishments for deemed offenders, three tiers have been listed, with the caveat that these aren't the only actions they'll be taking:

• "Warnings for low-severity cases where abuse was limited."
• "Removal of coins tied to exploit activity."
• "Suspensions for the severe cases, particularly, where exploit usage had a significant impact on the in-game economy or other players’ experience."

The post finishes by explaining they "hope this response provides a platform for future action," and that as a result of this process, their "detection and tracking, internal review tools, and safeguards to limit the impact of similar exploits" have been improved. If you encounter exploits in the future, you can report them via the official Discord server.