The competitive integrity of ARC Raiders hinges on the high-stakes, risk-reward nature of its extraction zones. Central to this tension are the secured, locked loot rooms, which promise high-tier gear only to players who successfully acquire the necessary keys and survive the ensuing conflict. However, for a period, this balance was severely undermined by exploits that allowed unscrupulous players to glitch through doors, bypassing the key requirement and hoarding valuable loot.
In a move praised by the honest player base, Embark Studios recently deployed an aggressive, unlisted hotfix designed specifically to neutralize these “door exploits,” demonstrating a decisive commitment to fair play.
The Problem: Loot Without the Lisk
The cheating problem centered on two main issues:
- Door Glitching: Techniques involving rapid movement or specific environmental collisions allowed players to clip through locked doors without the required access key, granting them instant access to high-value caches intended for high-level Raiders.
- Unfair Economy: This exploit created a vacuum in the game’s economy, as exploiters could accumulate rare crafting materials and high-tier weapons without risking the dangerous fights typically required to earn the necessary keys. This fundamentally undermined the balance of high-end loadouts.
The Developer’s Decisive Action
The hotfix deployed by the developers was swift and highly effective, focusing on server-side validation checks that monitor player movement in proximity to secure doors:
- Server-Side Validation: The fix reportedly relies on server-side logic to confirm that a player has successfully triggered the correct key card access animation before allowing them to pass the door threshold. Any attempt to bypass this animation through glitches now results in the player being violently repositioned back outside the room, or in severe cases, triggering a server-side sanction.
- Targeting “Rats”: The fix specifically targets the opportunistic players—or “rats,” as they are known in the community—who exploited the mechanic without engaging in any actual combat, directly restoring the risk factor to the high-reward areas.
Restoring Integrity and Trust
The community response has been overwhelmingly positive. The fix not only addresses a technical vulnerability but also sends a clear message about the developers’ intolerance for unfair play.
“The difference is night and day,” commented one veteran Raider on a fan forum. “The high-value rooms are finally being contested the way they should be—with firefights over keys, not with players glitching through walls. It makes the risk of farming worth the effort again.”
The security of the locked rooms is now robust, restoring the intended high-stakes flow to the most lucrative zones. For players who invest time and resources into legitimate progression, the battlefield is now a much fairer place, rewarding skill and strategy over cheap exploits.
