Arc Raiders still has a cheating problem because cheats are an $8 billion industry and "we'd need thousands of developers" to counter it, says Embark engineer

At Gamescom, senior software engineer Tom van Dijck laid out the scale of the battle: Arc Raiders’ anti‑cheat team is tiny compared with the professional cheat services that generate billions of dollars by selling hacks for titles such as Valorant and Counter‑Strike. In the past week alone, Embark disabled roughly fifteen thousand accounts, yet new offenders appear faster than the patches can be rolled out. The studio’s dilemma is amplified by the fact that it is simultaneously developing The Finals, stretching its engineering bandwidth and forcing a temporary shutdown of Arc Raiders’ Expeditions mode until early 2027 for a major overhaul.

The situation mirrors a wider industry trend where cheat developers have organized into quasi‑legitimate businesses, offering subscription‑based aimbots, wall‑hacks, and performance boosters. Their revenue streams attract sophisticated talent, making detection a perpetual cat‑and‑mouse game. Moreover, legitimate third‑party overlays such as Steam’s UI extensions or Overwolf’s add‑ons can inadvertently trigger anti‑cheat flags, complicating the enforcement pipeline. Competitors like Riot Games and Valve have invested heavily in proprietary detection suites, but even they report constant evasion tactics, underscoring that the problem is systemic rather than isolated to Embark.

Looking ahead, Arc Raiders’ ability to retain its player base hinges on how effectively Embark can scale its anti‑cheat infrastructure without crippling development of The Finals. Potential moves include outsourcing detection to specialist firms, integrating machine‑learning classifiers, or tightening the API boundaries for permitted overlays. Failure to curb cheating could erode community trust, depress revenue, and force more drastic content pauses. Observers should watch for announcements of new anti‑cheat partnerships, changes to the game’s client architecture, and any shift in Embark’s resource allocation between Arc Raiders and its upcoming titles.