Developer Embark Studios has acknowledged the major exploit that has been abused in PvPvE extraction shooter ARC Raiders that allows players access to locked rooms without needing a key. The studio has released a hotfix that aims to punish players making use of the exploit for the time being while it works towards a more permanent fix for later on down the line.
By the studio’s own admission, the update is a small one that focuses on fixing a couple of exploits, with the fix for the locked room exploit being referred to in the patch notes as being “a very hot fix”. Since the release of the update, players attempting to use the exploit to enter locked rooms without actually unlocking the rooms are met with flamethrowers in the walls that deal heavy amounts of damage and even kills the player.
The bug was believed to be disruptive enough that players had been calling for Embark Studios to ban those who make use of the exploit. Before the update, the studio hadn’t made any comment about its plans to address the bug.
Due to the nature of ARC Raiders, the death carries a heavy penalty, since not only does it ensure that the dead player doesn’t get to take any of the loot they might have found back to base, the player also loses all the gear they entered the level with. As an added bonus, players who use keys to unlock these doors might even find the corpses of dead players who tried to use the exploit, which can then be looted. As for what else the update focuses on, you can check out the full patch notes for it below.
Since its release last month, ARC Raiders has turned out to be quite successful for Embark Studios. Earlier this month, the extraction shooter had reached new heights in its concurrent player numbers, even going as far as beating Battlefield 6 for a weekend. While exact sales figures haven’t yet been confirmed, industry analyst Alinea Analytics believes that it is close to hitting the 7 million copies sold mark.
Out of this 7 million, around 4 million are believed to be for the Steam version of the game, and 750,000 sales having happened just last week.
ARC Raiders is available on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. For more details about the extraction shooter, check out our review.
ARC Raiders 1.4.0 patch notes:
- Exploit mitigation mechanisms have been added for all locked rooms across all maps.
- Fixed the gun exploit that allowed you to shoot quicker than intended by swapping to a quick use item and back.
- The exterior access to Spaceport’s Control Tower locked room has been blocked off.
- Fixed the issue that sometimes caused low resolution textures in the Main Menu.
- Fixed players being able to push each other by jumping on each other’s backs.
- Fixed lighting artifacts that would sometimes occur upon entering maps.
- Raider Voice now correctly respects the selected voice option after restarting the game.
