Embark Studios' popular extraction shooter ARC Raiders has seen some controversy surrounding the recent crackdown on a duplication bug that allowed players to create multiples of items in their inventories in unintended ways. Loot is a big part of ARC Raiders' gameplay loop, where players spend most of their time on top scavenging for valuable items while trying to survive against PvE ARC enemies and other attackers in PvP. To that end, it's understandable why Embark would want to punish players who exploited this glitch to ensure all players are on a level playing field and deter others from trying to cheat the system in the future.
Dupes in items ARC Raiders gives some players a hugely unfair advantage, as players can essentially create an infinite number of powerful weapons that ARC Raiders'Trigger' Nades to barrage his enemies with. Part of the challenge ARC Raiders managing a limited number of resources while exploring the top, and being able to endlessly reproduce a powerful item like Trigger 'Nade takes all the skill out of the game's combat. What's more, players could collect a large amount of coins by duplicating valuable items to sell for ARC Raiderstraders, giving them an unfair financial advantage.
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ARC Raiders will have a hard time justifying no duplication
The duplication error came in ARC Raiders has been fixed on February 10, when an OTA hotfix squashed the bug a few hours after the February update for ARC Raiders rolled out. However, there was a period when it looked like Embark Studios wasn't going to address the bug at all, as it wasn't initially mentioned as a known issue in the update's patch notes. However, Embark later clarified on social media that it would quickly roll out a hotfix for the bug once attention was drawn to it, and now it is no longer possible to use it in-game.
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Why some ARC Raiders players are having trouble duplicating items
The initial response from Embark was somewhat vague about the implications for ARC Raiders player caught with the duplication bug. Performing this glitch required players to take a consumable in their Quick Use tray and hold it in their hand, then go into their stock, split the stack of that item, recombine the stacks, then split the stack again, and they could then discard an unlimited number of that item. Players who participated in the bug have already had some duplicate items removed from their inventory, but Embark is taking another step to crack down ARC Raiders cheaters by subjecting those who used the bug extensively to further scrutiny, with a potential ban for players deemed to have severely exploited the bug.
This ARC Raiders The duplication bug primarily affected Quick Use consumables such as grenades and Familiar Ducks, the latter of which could be sold by players for infinite coins.
It seems unlikely that ARC Raiders content creators will be banned for using the duplication bug
Popular ARC Raiders steamer TheBurntPeanut is one of the most infamous users of this duplicate, having used it frequently to spam Tigger 'Nades against opponents during matches. Probably TheBurntPeanut is part of the reason why the use of this glitch became so widespread in ARC Raiders before it was corrected, as the content creator has over 1.5 million YouTube subscribers and nearly 2 million Twitch followers. However, it seems unlikely that TheBurntPeanut will be punished too harshly for his participation in this error, given that he is one of the biggest ARC Raiders content creators out there, but this puts Embark in an awkward position regarding any potential bans for the duplication bug.
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ARC Raider's duplication glitch deserves to be punished, but Embark won't be able to pick and choose who gets hit
Because Embark is so vague about its criteria for duplication, using a non-specific term like “excessive” to indicate which users will be considered for a ban, there is a lot of uncertainty about how widespread punishment for this error will be. On the one hand, it doesn't seem entirely fair to punish players for a mistake made by the developer. It's not like ARC Raiders players hacked the game to achieve this exploit; it was simply a bug discovered by players organically.
On the other hand, Embark may want to discourage players from trying to abuse such bugs in the future by making an example of players who “excessively” duplicated items and banning or suspending their ARC Raiders accounts. But doing so would create a problem with no easy solution, as it would require the developer to massively ban content creators like TheBurntPeanut along with regular players. This largely falls to Embark to determine what constitutes “excessive” use of the bug, but ruling either way has the potential to upset some of the ARC Raiders fan base.
If Embark bans anyone who used the duplication bug beyond a certain threshold, it risks scaring away some of the biggest content creators from the game and potentially losing their followers as well. However, if these content creators are exempt from bans, the players who are banned may see it as an unfair exemption, or “streamer privilege,” potentially giving these creators license to abuse future exploits without fear of repercussion. TheBurntPeanut is already somewhat controversial among ARC Raiders players because of his Bungulators streamer wars that tormented ARC Raiders in November last year. Any special treatment given by Embark can help further divisiveness between players and the streamer's fanbase and create a more toxic gaming environment in the long run.
- Released
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30 October 2025
- ESRB
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Teen/violence, blood
