Streamers call out Arc Raiders cheaters as ex-PUBG lead says manual bans were the only real option
High-profile streamers have publicly raised the alarm about cheaters in Arc Raiders, and a former PUBG community manager says the practical response can be painfully manual. Shroud told viewers that “this game is so shit” and that he is “convinced Embark actually doesn’t care” after encountering multiple suspicious players in his matches. Ninja has also spoken about the abundance of cheaters in the game and his own negative experiences in lobbies.
Ex-PUBG community manager Hawkinz reposted a clip of Shroud’s complaint and described how he used to tackle similar problems. Hawkinz said he would join Shroud’s matches and remove cheaters himself. He wrote that he “Spent hours just watching and dumping names into spreadsheets until early AMs,” and that he would launch into the streamers games and manually ban hackers and stream snipers. Hawkinz added that what he did “wasn’t sactioned by PUBG, I wasn’t really allowed to do it.” He also warned that making that kind of streamer-specific enforcement a standard practice would likely create more problems than it solves and would not be in the best interest of most companies.
Hawkinz framed the limits this way, saying you “can’t do much about cheaters who want to fuck with streamers without manual monitoring” and noting the tradeoffs of focused interventions, including perceived favoritism and diverted developer hours. He also recalled a recurring scene he found memorable, where dozens of players would disconnect the instant Shroud died and then queue again to rejoin his next match.
One of the tweets where he explains that manual monitoring is the only practical response appears here:
When I was at PUBG, I'd launch into Shroud's games and manually ban hackers and stream snipers.
Spent hours just watching and dumping names into spreadsheets until early AMs.
Can't do much about cheaters who want to fuck with streamers without manual monitoring. https://t.co/QR8geuC9Zm
— Hawkinz (@Hawkinz) February 25, 2026
the point of the tweet is that you can't fix the problem without intensive manual handling and it's not in the best interest of most companies to do that, especially when it can cause issues with community, favourtism.. take away man hours from helping the masses etc.
— Hawkinz (@Hawkinz) February 25, 2026
Another Hawkinz update recalling the disconnect behavior is available here:
It was always funny watching like 40-50 players just immedaitely freeze as they disconnected the moment he died in a match, to go queue into his next one
— Hawkinz (@Hawkinz) February 25, 2026
Embark Studios has previously acknowledged a surge of cheaters in Arc Raiders and said changes to how it detects and bans offenders were coming. That acknowledgment and the developers’ early responses were documented in a studio statement summarized here. The studio has also deployed a sequence of fixes and hotfixes for exploitable behaviors and item duplication, including a targeted update 1.12.0 and a later hotfix that addressed ammo duplication.
Streamers’ frustration reflects a broader problem for multiplayer games where high-visibility creators attract targeted attacks. Hawkins’ account suggests there are limited options beyond manual, time‑intensive interventions if developers do not want to single out individuals for special treatment. If you have encountered cheaters while playing Arc Raiders, tell us about it in the comments and follow for updates on changes and fixes via X, Bluesky, YouTube, and Instagram.
ARC Raiders
Developed by Embark Studios
ARC Raiders is a multiplayer, extraction adventure, set in a lethal future earth, ravaged by a mysterious mechanized threat known as ARC.
- Genre: Shooter
- Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, PC (Microsoft Windows), PlayStation 5
- Modes: Multiplayer, Co-operative
- Release: 2025-10-30
- Publisher: Embark Studios
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Age Rating:
ESRB T / PEGI 16 / GRAC 15+ / USK 18 / CLASS_IND 14 / ACB M
- IGDB Rating: 89.7/100
