Arc Raiders seemingly perma-ban disabled players due to accessibility tools

Despite being the most popular shooter since its launch, Arc Raiders has struggled with cheaters and various game exploits. Embark has not been able to anticipate these issues, resulting in delayed responses. The developers have promised harsh consequences for those who violate the game's code of conduct, but it seems the anti-cheat may have swept up some genuine players.

Tay Huynh is a quadriplegic gamer who uses a sip and puff mouth accessibility controller called a QuadStick to play various games, including Arc Raiders. According to his post on Reddit, Embark has slapped him with a permanent ban for “behavior that violates our code of conduct” despite not using any hacks, exploits, or cheats.

Arc Raider's anti-cheat may not pick up accessibility checks

Arc Raiders Two characters facing the robot

In his Reddit post, Huynh explained that he had previously received a one-month suspension from Arc Raiders and that there was no resolution after submitting tickets or bringing it up in the Arc Raiders Discord channel. In the end, he decided to let it rest and move on to other games until his suspension was over.

Unfortunately, just after a day of playing, Huynh woke up to another message saying that his account has been permanently suspended from Arc Raiders. “I don't have much going on for me and I know they're people out there who are probably going through worse but this shit sucks,” he said. “After playing for over 300 hours, buying it for 3 other friends to try the game, and being excited about the new map and big ARC enemy, I just don't know what to do.”

He has also shared videos of him playing Fortnite with the QuadStick controller to make his case. Huynh revealed that his gamer tag is ClootyBapper, and while it's funny, it's not really a banned crime.

The most likely scenario is that Arc Raider's anti-cheat software picked up Huynh's QuadStick as some kind of cheat software or tool, instead of an accessibility checker. However, it is worrying that the developers have not investigated his appeals and reinstated the ban after realizing what happened. Hopefully the right people at Embark learn about this and fix it as soon as possible.

We've reached out to Embark for comment on this story.