How Arc Raiders Players Broke The Game
Arc Raiders has not been out for long, but its community has already earned a reputation for getting extremely creative with the game systems. From wall exploits to wild physics tricks, players have been poking and prodding at every corner of the map to see what they can get away with.
One of the most infamous examples was a set of wall exploits that let Raiders slip out of bounds and access areas that were never meant to be reachable. Players found ways to break into high level loot rooms such as the Dam Control Tower, grabbing powerful rewards far earlier than intended.
These tricks spread quickly through the community. Many players treated them less like hardcore cheating and more like a shared secret or an urban legend. Showing someone how to phase through a wall and appear inside a locked loot room became a sort of social event, complete with surprise, laughter, and a little bit of mischief.
Of course, the developers at Embark Studios were watching.
Art director Robert Sammelin explained that while some bugs and exploits are expected in any complex online game, the way players use them can still be surprising. The team constantly has to “waterproof” the experience, finding and fixing anything that causes serious balance problems or can damage the overall health of the game.
Seeing players abuse walls, doors, and geometry pushed the team to rethink how some of these spaces were built. It was not just about closing a single hole. It was about learning how the community thinks and making the game more robust for the long term.
From Wallhacks To Ovens
The Dam Control wallhack became famous enough that Embark gave it a particularly dramatic send-off. The exploit previously allowed players to sneak into a locked room to scoop up high tier loot. After a patch, that same space effectively turned into an oven. Anyone who tried to repeat the trick would be cooked alive instead of rewarded.
It is a funny but clear message: you can try to break the rules, but the game might bite back.
For some players, it was a bittersweet change. The exploit did not directly harm others, and many viewed it as a goofy, victimless thrill. But from a design point of view, letting players repeatedly farm top tier rewards through a geometry glitch would warp progression and undermine the challenge.
The fix shows how modern online games often use creative solutions, not just invisible patches. By turning the loot room into a deadly trap, Embark leaned into the game’s world and tone while closing the loophole. It is both functional and memorable, which keeps the community talking even as the exploit disappears.
Sammelin notes that this kind of community behavior is not always negative. In many cases the team feels more delight than frustration. They have seen players take ideas and systems that were prototyped internally and push them to levels the developers never anticipated.
That feedback loop is powerful. Every strange strategy and unexpected stunt teaches the developers something about how players read the environment, how they move, and how they combine tools in ways the designers did not strictly plan for. It all feeds back into future tweaks, patches, and new content.
Creative Chaos In The Arc Raiders Community
Not all surprises in Arc Raiders come from reaching places you should not. A lot of the community’s creativity comes from using the game’s physicality and gadgets in slightly twisted ways.
Over time players have uncovered all sorts of wild tricks, including:
- A player on the Stella Montis map who dedicated themselves to turning the small arena into a full on death maze, trapping other Raiders and reveling in their confusion.
- Using ziplines not for movement, but as traps. With the right setup, they can pin other players into awkward positions, leaving them stuck and vulnerable, like fish in a barrel.
- Climbing on top of Rocketeers and using them as improvised mobile weapons platforms. It is not how the enemies were originally meant to be used, but it looks incredible and opens totally new combat situations.
Only a small percentage of players have pulled off some of these stunts, but the fact that they work at all shows how flexible the underlying systems are. Physics, gadgets, enemy behavior, and level design all intersect to allow these emergent moments.
Sammelin points out that this creativity is not an accident. In early versions of Arc Raiders the team wanted to give players a toolbox of gadgets and abilities that could interact in many different ways. The idea was to encourage improvisation. Players would not just follow a fixed plan. They would look at the environment, use what they had, and come up with clever solutions.
What the community is doing now is a direct extension of that design DNA. The line between an intentional combo and a happy accident is sometimes thin. One moment you are doing something smart with your grapple or zipline. The next moment a tiny tweak turns it into a full blown exploit.
For Embark, that tension is part of the fun. They want to support the spirit of experimentation without letting the game fall apart. That means some tricks will stay as fun hidden tech for skilled players while others get patched out if they start hurting fairness or stability.
In parallel, the broader Arc Raiders ecosystem keeps growing. Players are sharing guides to field depot and crate locations, walkthroughs for quests like Greasing Her Palms or A Reveal in Ruins, and tips on the best skills and expeditions. As the community learns the game, it also reshapes how the developers think about future updates.
If you are jumping into Arc Raiders now, you are stepping into a live conversation between players and developers. Every exploit found, every trap invented, and every Rocketeer rodeo makes the game a little weirder and a little better. Just do not be shocked if your favorite wallhack becomes an oven in the next patch.
Original article and image: https://www.pcgamer.com/games/third-person-shooter/quite-a-few-things-have-taken-us-by-surprise-arc-raiders-wallhacks-caught-the-devs-off-guard-as-heaps-of-greedy-players-hunted-for-exploits/
