“No warnings. No second chances.”
That is Embark Studios’ new position on cheating in Arc Raiders, and it comes backed by a full anti-cheat overhaul announced by executive producer Aleksander Grøndal ahead of the game’s biggest update yet. The timing is deliberate: the Frozen Trail expansion launches on 8 October, and Embark is making clear it wants the game’s next chapter to arrive on cleaner ground.
From Caution to Consequences
Embark was previously cautious about permanent bans for first-time cheaters, aware that detection systems are not infallible and that an overcautious trigger could catch legitimate players. That caution is now gone. Every account caught using a known cheat program receives a permanent ban on the first offence. No warnings. No appeals to intent. No second account loophole either — a copy of the game tied to a sanctioned account cannot be transferred to another account, and any account ever associated with a banned copy is permanently banned too.
“Cheating undermines what makes Arc Raiders challenging and fun, and disrupts the experience for everyone playing,” Grøndal wrote in the announcement post. The studio acknowledges that detections deliberately wait for evidence across multiple instances before a permanent ban is issued, specifically to avoid catching innocent players — the “no warnings” policy applies once detection confidence is high, not the moment any suspicion registers.
How detection works: Denuvo anti-cheat, Anybrain behavioural analysis, and in-house machine-learning models run in tandem. Embark’s team also monitors YouTube clips and streams manually and reviews flagged footage before issuing bans.
Hardware Bans and Elytra
Beyond account bans, Embark is extending its reach to the machines themselves. The threshold for applying a hardware ban — which prevents the game from running on a specific system — has been lowered. The studio is working to expand the number of systems it can hardware-ban, aiming for near-universal coverage of caught machines later this year.
A new anti-cheat system is also on the horizon for Arc Raiders. Elytra, Embark’s in-house system currently deployed in sibling title The FINALS, is in testing for Arc Raiders. No specific date has been given for when it will arrive in-game.
Queue Teaming Down 85%
— players pre-arranging alliances in solo queue to gain an unfair advantage — has already seen significant improvement. Embark introduced a matchmaking rule that keeps known teaming groups separated in queue, and the results are striking: queue teaming incidents fell by 85% in five days, dropping from roughly one spoiled raid in every 50 sessions to one in every 300.The studio is careful to distinguish between enforced teamwork and organic cooperation. Meeting someone in raid via proximity chat and choosing to work together is fine and very much part of Arc Raiders’ design. Pre-arranged teaming for a systematic advantage is what the matchmaking change targets.
An appeal pathway remains open for players who believe they have been incorrectly banned. Embark Support handles these cases via the In-Game Ban option in the support chat: supply your Embark ID, the ban notice, and any relevant context. Given that detections require evidence across multiple behavioural instances before a permanent ban is issued, Embark says its false-positive rate is low — but the route remains open for anyone who needs it.
What’s Arriving in October
The anti-cheat overhaul is one piece of a busy October for Arc Raiders. Frozen Trail launches 8 October with Pendola Pass, a frozen Italian village map, plus the Frigate — a massive ARC vessel players can board and fight through. Three new enemy types, new weapons including the Stiletto and Bantam, a grappling hook, and the Reward Pass system replacing Raider Decks are all included.
A temporary PvE matchmaking mode is also being tested from 13-20 October: zero player-to-player damage, mixed lobby sizes, and lower loot value — a way for players who want the raid experience without the PvP friction to try the game’s core loop. PvPvE ratings remain unaffected during the test window. Permanent cheaters, of course, will not be joining any of it.
October represents Arc Raiders’ most active development month yet. With the anti-cheat overhaul in place and Frozen Trail arriving 8 October, Embark is making a clear statement: the game it wants players to experience from here on is a cleaner, fairer one.
