Over the holiday window players reported an uptick in cheating in ARC Raiders. Embark Studios pushed patches after returning to the office as 2026 began, and some problems eased, but the so-called ceiling glitch remains a recurring issue. A December 11 bug fix addressed spawning problems, but the exploit that lets players get above maps and shoot down at others is still being used in places like Stella Montis.
The ceiling glitch lets players manipulate geometry to place themselves above the playable area and fire down on opponents. In a recent clip uploaded by a user named aimkey, three players drop into the rafters of Stella Montis to go after another trio that was already hiding up there.
The video shows a strange cat and mouse scenario. Tired of being killed by the exploit, aimkey and his teammates use the same method to chase and eliminate the players who had been abusing it. Aimkey tells viewers the trick is “super easy to do.”
That raises an ethical question. Two wrongs do not make a right, and exploiting a map to punish exploiters still breaks the game for everyone else. The situation echoes older incidents in other extraction shooters. A YouTuber in Escape from Tarkov once bought and ran cheats to identify other cheaters and said he used them for research rather than to gain an advantage. He found cheaters were widespread.
Out-of-map exploits have been part of multiplayer games for decades. Players still remember spots like the hillside glitch on Overgrown in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, where geometry and map limits created repeatable hiding places. Embark Studios has been issuing patches to address a range of issues since the turn of the year. The ceiling exploit remains a problem in specific areas and is drawing player responses that range from reporting and bans to players taking matters into their own hands.
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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
