When Embark Studios launched ARC Raiders in late 2025, they envisioned a tense tactical extraction shooter where every encounter mattered. What they didn’t anticipate was the cheating epidemic that would threaten their game’s future.
The Scale of the Problem
ARC Raiders attracts hundreds of thousands of players monthly, and where crowds gather, cheaters follow. Industry estimates suggest that at any given time, between 1-3% of players in major shooters use unauthorized software. For ARC Raiders, that means thousands of accounts running aimbots, ESP wallhacks, and radar tools.
Modern ARC Raiders cheats have grown increasingly sophisticated. Players can access ESP systems revealing enemy positions through terrain, aimbots with humanized tracking that mimics natural aiming, and radar overlays providing complete situational awareness. Some bypass traditional detection entirely using DMA hardware that reads memory directly from the PCIe bus.
Embark’s Response
Embark CEO Patrick Söderlund has been candid about the challenge. Cheating typically affects between 0.1% and 1% of players in large multiplayer games, he explained in a recent interview, and anti-cheat is an “ongoing arms race” rather than a solvable problem.
The studio has implemented several countermeasures:
- Kernel-level anti-cheat integration scanning for known cheat signatures
- Server-side validation independently calculating hit registration and player movements
- Behavioral analysis flagging statistical outliers—players with impossible accuracy
- Hardware fingerprinting tracking components across account resets
Recent updates have introduced machine learning models trained on professional player data, improving the system’s ability to distinguish between skill and software.
The Ban Waves
January 2026 marked a turning point. Embark executed its largest ban wave to date, removing tens of thousands of accounts in what players described as a “massive cleanup.” The bans targeted players who had been stream sniping and cheating against high-profile streamers for months.
For the first time, ARC Raiders felt playable again. But account bans alone don’t stop dedicated cheaters. A new account is free. Without hardware-level enforcement, the cycle continues.
The Underground Economy
Embark’s aggressive approach hasn’t eliminated cheating—it’s driven it underground. Cheat providers now operate like legitimate businesses, offering subscription tiers, 24/7 customer support via Discord, and rapid updates timed to every game patch.
Prices reflect the difficulty of bypassing ARC Raiders’ anti-cheat. The harder the game, the more expensive the cheats. Some providers charge $100-200 monthly for “private” cheats with smaller user bases and lower detection risk.
Many competitive ARC Raiders players turn to specialist providers like eshub for tools that maintain compatibility through every anti-cheat update, highlighting the ongoing arms race between Embark and cheat creators.
What’s Next
Embark continues investing in anti-cheat technology. The Shrouded Sky update promises new content, but for many players, the only update that matters is whether matches feel fair.
For now, the arms race continues. Anti-cheat updates. Cheat developers counter-update. Players choose sides. And ARC Raiders soldiers on, caught in the middle.
