Embark Studios is fully preparing for the major update "Frozen Trail" for Arc Raiders, scheduled to launch next week. Developers have teased plenty of new content: a limited-time PvE mode, dynamically refreshing loot hotspots, surface base-building gameplay, along with a huge array of new items and story chapters. I've been eagerly anticipating these updates, but rampant cheating has always been my biggest concern, and Embark has now officially addressed this issue.
"Cheating destroys the challenge and fun of Arc Raiders, and ruins the experience for all fair players," said Executive Producer Alexander Grøndal in a blog post. "At Embark, we take this matter very seriously and have invested significant time and resources to continuously combat违规cheating behavior."
"The cheating industry is constantly evolving. Cheat developers profit by selling cheating software to players, which often comes bundled with malware; every time we upgrade our protection mechanisms, they adjust their strategies to find new ways to bypass them. We are iterating in parallel. Our expanding anti-cheat team works continuously to detect and block new cheats, patch the vulnerabilities they exploit, and raise the bar for cheating, making it harder and less worthwhile. As long as our game is live, we will remain committed to this work."
For a long time, Embark has been sharing updates on Arc Raiders' anti-cheat efforts, occasionally communicating with players to assure them that the anti-cheat system exists and is operational. However, these measures have not yielded significant results so far, and clearly haven't quelled ongoing player dissatisfaction. Grøndal acknowledged that "simply saying we are trying is not enough," so this time he presented a distinctly different approach:
"In recent months, we have improved our ability to identify and penalize accounts using cheats, as well as those exploiting economic system loopholes. We are also continuously increasing restrictions to prevent repeat offenders from easily registering new accounts to return to the game."
"Currently, all accounts associated with known cheats are permanently banned, which is now standard procedure; according to policy, any account confirmed to have used cheating methods will be permanently banned. No warnings, no second chances."
Accounts linked to accounts banned for cheating will now also be permanently banned in sync. Additionally, Embark will more frequently employ hardware bans when there is "sufficient evidence that a device has been used for cheating."
In the long term, Embark is developing its own cheat detection models based on machine learning and other data technologies. In addition to the existing Denuvo Anti-Cheat and Anybrain technology, Embark plans to introduce the Elytra anti-cheat system—a system already applied on a small scale in The Finals with "promising potential."
I don't believe these measures will bring about an immediate turnaround, given the long-standing cheating issues in Arc Raiders; their actual effectiveness remains to be seen. However, Embark's willingness to take strong action to clean up the game environment, especially by rolling out these measures before the "Frozen Trail" update, is undoubtedly a very positive signal.
"Game cheating is a multi-billion dollar industry that can never be completely eradicated," Grøndal added. "What we can do is make cheating as difficult and costly as possible, while shortening the effective lifespan of cheats."
"We built Arc Raiders with love and craftsmanship, and seeing it abused by cheaters makes us as angry as everyone else. We are making progress and will continue our efforts: identifying cheating more efficiently, responding faster, raising the barrier for repeat offenders to return, and optimizing the experience for all fair players."