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When it comes to online gaming, cheaters almost always prosper. Until the last week or so, Arc Raiders has been pretty fortunate not to have been seriously impacted by people using exploits, hacks, and software to gain an unfair advantage, but that run of luck has recently come to an end. With big-name streamers like Ninja and Shroud calling out the recent spate of game-ruining cheating, developer Embark Studios has suggested patches are incoming.
Since its October 20, 2025 release, Arc Raiders has become a phenomenon. The PvPvE first-person extraction shooter routinely sits in fourth or fifth place on Steam’s charts (the highest it’s realistically possible for any game to be, given the unmoving dominance of Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2 and PUBG), and deservedly so. It’s a stunning game. But in the last week, a number of high-profile players have expressed deep frustration at the outbreak of cheating since the new year. Some, like Shroud, have temporarily shifted to playing Escape from Tarkov as a consequence (thanks Dexerto), after declaring, “What’s the point of fucking playing?” during a stream.
"whats the point of f*ckin playing?"
shroud on the state of cheaters in ARC Raiders… pic.twitter.com/8uzpMiTLkB
— Shroud Updates (@ShroudUpdate) January 6, 2026
Ninja got in on the griping, echoing the thoughts of HutchMF.
Where are you @EmbarkStudios https://t.co/1vFyi88gsp
— Ninja (@Ninja) January 7, 2026
Meanwhile, Matthew “Nadeshot” Haag wrote a far more detailed post about the situation, including suggestions of how Embark could fix the most serious problems. “My experience on Arc Raiders over the last week has been hell,” the lengthy post begins. After expressing his love for the game, and outlining how prolific cheating is, the streamer made some constructive comments, suggesting Embark mimic Epic’s approach to defending Fortnite from evildoers: “Legitimate legal action against providers and individuals who are actively supplying and using cheating software.”
My experience on Arc Raiders over the last week has been hell. Just to be clear, I love this game and think it’s already moved in to my personal top 10 all time.
But the egregious amount of cheating genuinely might be worse than peak Call of Duty. I’m not trying to bring…
— 100T Nadeshot (@Nadeshot) January 4, 2026
When someone suggested such moves might be beyond Embark’s far more modest means, Nadeshot agreed. “That certainly crossed my mind. Smaller studio, less resources. I get it. I don’t have any other ideas, though.”
However, it’s worth noting that these issues have arisen while the Arc Raiders team took a vacation, and that on return the studio plans to issue new patches. “The team was on vaction,” said community manager CM Birdie on the game’s Discord. “The patches will come soon enough, you will see! The team has been looking into the issues you keep talking about, for example, trigger nades, stitcher, kettle…” It’s not clear if these patches will address cheating issues, or just other frustrations regarding OP equipment in PvP situations, but it does confirm the game has been running with a skeleton staff for a short while. We’ve contacted Embark to ask for more details.
By the way, if you’re a less hardcore player of Arc Raiders, more prone to avoiding PvP, there’s a good chance you’ve encountered significantly less cheating than others. This is because the game very cleverly does a sneaky sort of matchmaking, as recently confirmed by Embark, where those who avoid fighting other players are put into games with others of a similar mindset, while those who like to snipe fellow scavengers are more likely to bump into one another. Clearly cheaters are far more likely to be killing other players, so the more peaceful types could be less likely to encounter them.
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