ARC Raiders has a nasty issue that’s bubbling in the shadows, and it concerns cheaters finding their place in the game and ruining the fun for legitimate players. It’s not a widespread issue at present, but it’s bad enough that the game’s biggest streamers have voiced their concerns in the last few days.
If you’ve ever run around outside Speranza and found yourself the victim of a dubious death, you’re likely not alone. While Embark Studios has promised to work on these issues in the short-term, the PR damage is being done by streamers slamming the game on social media.
Does ARC Raiders Have a Cheater Problem?
The recent spate of complaints regarding ARC Raiders’ apparent cheater problem was kicked off in earnest by Nadeshot. He posted something of an essay on social media complaining about the deep-rooted cheater-based plague impacting ARC Raiders, one of his favorite games in recent years.
The egregious amount of cheating genuinely might be worse than peak Call of Duty. I’m not trying to bring negativity to the game because I know this type of dialogue can spread on socials like a disease but I genuinely cannot get through an entire raid without a Steam profile that is level 0 or an account that has multiple game bans and VAC bans on record.
He turned dramatic when he tried to convey his losses to readers:
I’m at war and I’m getting absolutely pummeled for 8 hours straight every day. Hours and hours of looting, crafting and investment of time and resources wiped out raid after raid, over and over again.
Days later, Shroud surfaced in a clip and declared that ‘50% of each lobby is cheating’ and asked, ‘What’s the point in playing?’
Embark Studios implemented a feature before launch that allows users to claim back their lost resources when killed by ‘confirmed cheaters’, but it’s a band-aid over a gunshot wound when it happens regularly enough to get under your skin.
Many have commented on social media claiming that, even after hundreds of hours in the game, they’re yet to see a single cheater or suspicious player. It’s a mixed bag right now, and it’s hard to say one way or another, but it’s no big secret that cheating has become an epidemic in recent years.
It was only a matter of time before cheaters found ARC Raiders, especially as there’s money to be made from RMT (real-money trading). On social media, blueprints and rare weapons can sell for a fair amount of cash, and that’s what’s fuelling a lot of the cheating issues in ARC Raiders.
Do you think you’ve ever run into a cheater on ARC Raiders? Let us know what happened to you on the Insider Gaming Discord server.
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Grant has been gaming for 30+ years and in the industry for 10+. You'll probably find him playing a post-apocalyptic game or an extraction shooter somewhere.
More from Grant Taylor-Hill
200+ hours and not a single cheater seen.