A series of duplication glitches that allowed players to amass large quantities of valuable items in ARC Raiders will now have repercussions for those who took part.
Embark Studios revealed this morning that its investigation into recent exploits is now complete, and the studio will be punishing those who took part in duplicating items in several different ways, depending on just how severe the actions were.
“Though these exploits stemmed from a design flaw on our part, the way they were used had a real impact on the game’s economy and the way the community experienced ARC Raiders,” Embark said this morning. “It’s on us to address that and work to restore balance. Over the course of this week, we will begin issuing enforcement actions to accounts that we can confirm took advantage of these exploits.”
ARC Raiders is a unique situation as an extraction shooter where the value of items has a distinct impact on gameplay systems and features like the Expedition Project, where in-game coins are saved up to put toward a goal. Duplicating valuable items basically breaks the game, and so the team says action needs to be taken.
The response to the news on social media has been pretty tepid, as you could imagine, with many players annoyed that the issue being a problem on Embark’s end is now resulting in punishments. Several others have been calling for bans of streamers like TheBurntPeanut, who showcased the exploit to tens of thousands of viewers.
According to the dev, the punishments they expect to be doled out include:
- Warnings for low-severity cases where abuse was limited.
- Removal of Coins tied to exploit activity.
- Suspensions for the severe cases, particularly where exploit usage had a significant impact on the in-game economy or other players’ experience.
“It’s our hope that this response provides a platform for future action, and we’ve already improved our detection and tracking, internal review tools, and safeguards to limit the impact of similar exploits,” Embark Said. “We take this incident seriously, and we’re approaching it as both a corrective effort and a learning opportunity to strengthen the systems that support fair play.”
