Arc Raiders has been cracked to play online

Arc Raiders has easily been one of the biggest games released in recent months, having sold over 12 million copies and managed to gather millions of players every day. It's the hot new game at the moment, which obviously means pirates have been working hard to crack the game as soon as possible, since it's not like your typical free-to-play live service game.

Well, unfortunately for Embark Studios, that day has now arrived. First shared on the PiratedGames subreddit, it's been announced that Arc Raiders has officially been cracked for online play, meaning an influx of people who weren't quite keen on paying Embark for the game will be diving in to play multiplayer games.

Arc Raiders has been cracked to play online

But while you'd probably expect something like this to be celebrated by video game pirates, the reaction to this news is pretty mixed. To begin with, it is important to be aware that Arc Raiders has a very large cheating problem at the moment. High-profile streamers like Shroud have called it out several times, while Embark itself has acknowledged the problem and is trying to take action.

close up of a bow raiders player wearing a helmet.

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But with a game like Arc Raiders being cracked for online play, it means that the less meticulous PC gamers out there can now get in more easily. As very eloquently put by a Reddit user named Le_Random12, the game being cracked now “opens the floodgates for big cheating Jim and his certainly not his alt account friends.” To put it succinctly, fans are worried.

Another user named AnthMos also points out that Embark will be working on fixing the problem, meaning we'll all be getting massive updates to download in an effort to stop hackers from flooding in. As another user puts it, the game being cracked to play online is “good for cheaters, bad for everyone else.”

You then also have a similar sentiment to when Hollow Knight: Silksong was cracked, as a user named Universal_Vlad says that they are not a fan of the game being cracked because Embark “should get all the support from the players” after doing such a good job. It's a sweet but rather naive sentiment that I'm sure many share, but it was always going to happen. Even the most beloved games out there are pirated, and Arc Raiders is no exception. We just have to hope it doesn't exacerbate the problem on the cheating front.