Since the game’s release, Arc Raiders devs have been up against it over cheating. It’s a continuous bugbear for both Embark Studios and the community, and in a recent panel, the team discussed just how difficult it is to maintain preventative measures.
Tom van Dijck, a senior software engineer at Embark, spoke at Gamescom about the unending whack-a-mole against exploits and third-party tools. “We’re just a small team, and even if we weren’t, we’re up against an $8 billion industry,” he said, per OtakuKart. “It’s operated like a commercial industry. How do you fight an industry that’s operated like a full business?”
Sadly, using outside methods to make your playing better is a lucrative market. There are large companies offering a variety of ways to enhance your abilities in a variety of games, including Valorant and Counter-Strike, and they all have a large customer base.
It doesn’t matter that it takes the fun out of the game and completely devalues winning. Cheaters continually find a way to do so, making everyone else’s lives harder. Embark’s been stamping out all sorts of glitches and enhancements for months now, and the Sisyphean task won’t be slowing down any time soon.
In fact, van Dijck points out the company banned 15,000 accounts this past Monday alone, but they just keep coming. “We can’t keep up with the cat and mouse game, because we’d need thousands of developers to counter the cheats,” he says.
Embark also makes The Finals, stretching resources even further. It’s not as simple as just relegating certain kinds of tools, either, because you have accessibility features and add-ons such as Steam or Overwolf that can get caught in the crossfire. It all seems tiring, but it’s a strong reminder that the developers are doing what they can against players who refuse to play the game fairly.