On October 20, Arc Raiders streamer aimkey posted a gameplay clip on X (formerly Twitter), captioning it with confusion: "Why haven't I been banned yet?" Many viewers pointed out that the crosshair movement speed was abnormally fast and the accuracy was unrealistic, typical characteristics of an aimbot cheat. On October 23, he confirmed that he had received a hardware ban from the game for using an aimbot.
Recently, aimkey posted: "I was wrongly banned from Arc Raiders for using an aimbot. I have been fully dedicated to the game since its launch, publicly streaming thousands of hours of gameplay. I am willing to fly specifically to Embark's headquarters to demonstrate my gameplay in front of the developers and prove that I do not cheat. My reputation and career have been ruined by this, and I have even received death threats as a result of this ban."
While anti-cheat systems can indeed produce false positives, objectively speaking, offering to travel to headquarters to demonstrate gameplay in person is not strong evidence to refute cheating allegations. It's akin to someone accused of theft telling a police officer, "Go ahead, put anything in front of me; I promise I won't steal it right in front of you."
Embark customer support representative Allen stated in an official response: "After our investigation, we have confirmed that this account exhibited persistent patterns of abnormal behavior, verifying the use of aimbot cheats. This violates the relevant provisions of Chapter 5 (Code of Conduct) of the Terms of Service and End User License Agreement."
aimkey also shared his complete communication records with Embark on his Twitch stream, confirming that he received a hardware-level ban—meaning his device will be permanently unable to run the game.
Arc Raiders had been experiencing a lull in content for several months, but the recent major update, "Frozen Path," has brought back a surge of popularity. Before the update launched, Embark announced a comprehensive upgrade to its anti-cheat system, stating that violators would receive permanent bans immediately, rather than facing temporary restrictions or graduated warnings.
On the Arc Raiders Reddit community, many players applauded this decision, likening it to finally catching a long-time troublemaker who had been ruining the game environment. They expressed satisfaction at seeing decisive action taken following the implementation of the new anti-cheat system. Some players even joked, "His ID is literally 'aimkey'... how ironic."