ARC Raiders became an instant hit when it dropped on October 30, 2025, but 2026 tells a different story. The Embark Studios' PvPvE extraction peaked at nearly 482,000 Steam players upon release. But only a few months down the line, those numbers have crashed by 80%.

The peak player numbers dropped to below 100K for the first time recently, and it seems this downward trend may continue. The community attributes the downturn not just to natural burnout, but also to a massive cheating problem and various gameplay and technical flaws.

Cheating is especially painful in ARC Raiders because it's an extraction shooter. When you die, you lose all your hard-earned gear. The game has become notorious for hackers using aimbots, wallhacks, and exploit‑heavy glitches like infinite seeker grenades.

Losing your stuff to someone who's hacking their way to victory makes casuals and even veteran gamers quit instantly.

Tyler "Ninja" Blevins actually announced an indefinite break from streaming it, heavily criticizing the game as being "unplayable." The cheating issue has become a PR issue for Embark Studios.

Notable names from the gaming community, like Shroud and TheBurntPeanut, shared similar frustrations.

How Did Embark Studios React to the Mass Cheating Concern in ARC Raiders?

The early attempts by the developers to get rid of these hackers faced huge criticism. At first, Embark Studios decided to rely on an AI tool called AnyBrain, which was an AI behavioral anti-cheat system layered into an Easy-Anti-Cheat (EAC).

What bugged most players, though, was the fact that this tool mostly handed out 30-day suspensions (reportedly in a 3-strike format), rarely permanently banning hackers. This made genuine players feel ignored and hard done by.

Furthermore, it got many innocent players falsely banned, with issues also being reported with the customer support to help fix it.

Finally, in 2026, the developers shifted their approach, introducing a progressive ban system and aggressive ban waves that imposed permanent bans on repeat offenders. This helped significantly reduce the number of visible hackers in the game.

Embark Studios went a step further and also gave back lost in-game items to players who could prove hackers killed them.

One thing to note is that many live-service games do experience a drop in player retention after certain time periods. This happens because after spending 80-100 hours in-game, gamers decide to try something new for a while or so.

Now with their player base at an all-time low, do you think Embark Studios should have taken stronger measures much before, in retrospect? Let us know in the comments below.

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Written by

Nisarga Aseem Barkule

Edited by

Aadesh Dhote