Embark Studios is fighting an uphill battle against cheaters in Arc Raiders and The Finals. During a Gamescom Dev presentation, software engineer Tom van Dijck offered a candid look at the studio’s anti-cheat efforts and the size of the problem it faces.
"We’re just a small team, and even if we weren’t, we’re up against an $8 billion industry," van Dijck said. "It’s operated like a commercial industry. How do you fight an industry that’s operated like a full business?"
The comments come as Arc Raiders continues to deal with widespread reports of cheating, stream sniping, exploits, and item duplication. While The Finals experiences similar issues, the extraction shooter has drawn the bulk of the community’s frustration.
A Multi-Headed Problem
Van Dijck described modern cheating as a constantly evolving threat that includes hardware devices, AI-assisted aimbots, and sophisticated software sold through organized commercial operations complete with customer support. Cheap hardware tools that manipulate memory and inputs are readily available, making cheats more accessible than ever.
Traditional vendor solutions have not been enough. Embark previously relied on Easy Anti-Cheat but found it insufficient. The studio has since partnered with Vaiiya to build its own kernel-level anti-cheat system. Van Dijck called kernel-level protection a "necessary evil" given the limitations of current operating systems, while acknowledging player concerns about privacy and stability.
Even with advanced tools, the studio cannot simply out-develop the other side. "We can’t keep up with the cat and mouse game, because we’d need thousands of developers to counter the cheats," he said.
Data as the Main Weapon
Embark has shifted toward a heavily data-driven approach. The studio captures up to 20 billion daily events across both games, tracking everything from mouse movement and click patterns to suspicious interactions with the environment and potential dupe activity. Analysts can reconstruct individual player sessions in detail, examining recoil control, crosshair behavior, and movement in ways that go beyond simple statistical flags.
Most of that data is noise from legitimate players. The challenge lies in isolating the signals that indicate actual cheating without false positives. Innocent software such as OBS, Steam overlays, or Overwolf can sometimes trigger similar patterns, complicating detection.
On the day of the Gamescom talk alone, Embark banned approximately 15,000 accounts. Van Dijck noted that the team believes the large majority of players want to compete fairly, though exact percentages remain internal.
Community Perception Adds Another Layer
Beyond the technical fight, Embark faces a persistent public-relations problem. Social media and Reddit frequently describe Arc Raiders as heavily infested with cheaters. High-profile streamers regularly encounter stream snipers and obvious cheaters in their lobbies, amplifying the perception that the problem is out of control.
Van Dijck said any public statement from the studio tends to draw significant backlash, making communication difficult. The studio continues to act on detections while trying to avoid over-penalizing legitimate players.
No Easy Solution
The presentation offered no claim of a permanent fix. Instead, it framed anti-cheat as an ongoing, resource-intensive contest against a well-funded and adaptive commercial ecosystem. Embark’s combination of custom kernel-level protection and massive telemetry analysis represents its current best attempt to stay ahead.
Whether that approach can meaningfully improve the day-to-day experience in Arc Raiders remains an open question for many players. What is clear from the Gamescom talk is that the studio views the cheating problem as structural rather than temporary, and that the fight will continue for as long as the games remain live.
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