Vera. Independent Proof for Digital Competition

What this game is

Arc Raiders is Embark Studios' PvPvE extraction shooter, released October 30, 2025 on PC (Steam and the Epic Games Store), PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S with crossplay, built on Unreal Engine 5. Embark, a Stockholm studio founded by former DICE chief Patrick Söderlund and a Nexon subsidiary since 2021, also makes The Finals. It reached a record 960,000 concurrent players across platforms in January 2026, as Gematsu reported, and Nexon said in August 2026 that it had sold more than 16.3 million copies; it also won Best Multiplayer Game at The Game Awards 2025. Like Escape from Tarkov and Call of Duty DMZ, a death can cost you the gear you brought in. Its matchmaking also keeps a record of how you play: design lead Virgil Watkins said in January 2026 that "we can track who shoots first."

What a thoughtful gamer should know

Online play requires a kernel-mode anti-cheat on Windows. After uninstalling, check Windows' installed apps for a leftover Denuvo Anti-Cheat entry, because Steam says that component needs manual removal. On Linux and Steam Deck the game runs through Proton, and Valve rates it Playable; if you hit error ARAV1011, make sure Valve's Proton Hotfix is current. If a confirmed cheater knocks you out, Embark's Fair Play Compensation mails your loot back automatically. And if you want calmer raids, Embark's own notes say the fights you start are what shape your matchmaking.

What installing this does to your system

kernel · with gameLoads a kernel-level driver while the game runs, then unloads it when you quit.

Arc Raiders asks for kernel-level anti-cheat, and Valve's store page says so: "Uses Kernel Level Anti-Cheat." The game launched on Easy Anti-Cheat, the same family Embark uses for The Finals, and Embark's support pages still name EAC. From May 19, 2026 Embark rolled out Denuvo Anti-Cheat, without Denuvo's DRM, and by June 30 it said the rollout had reached all players; its September 30 update describes "kernel-level protection from Denuvo" alongside Anybrain's input analysis and its own machine-learning models. Embark has not said whether EAC still runs beside Denuvo on every install, so this guide does not claim to know which kernel module your machine loads. The game process is PioneerGame.exe, named after the project's codename, and Steam notes that Denuvo "requires manual removal after game uninstall."

Publisher track record

Most of the record here is in Embark's own posts. On September 30, 2026, executive producer Aleks wrote that the studio had been "overly cautious about applying permanent bans to first-time cheaters," that any account caught cheating is now permanently banned, and that license restrictions stop a copy of the game tied to a sanction from being used with another account, with any account ever associated with a banned copy also permanently banned. When players described "aggression-based" lobbies, Watkins told GamesRadar+ that "we don't make any value or moral judgments"; Embark's May 20 notes then began treating self-defense differently from starting a fight, and update 1.39.0 tested counting only the fights you start. In March 2026 Söderlund said some text-to-speech voice lines had been re-recorded with actors, and that Embark pays actors "for the approval to license their voices through text-to-speech"; critics of the practice remain on the record alongside that account.

Process companions

User-mode processes this game ships with, catalogued in the Field Guide: easyanticheat.exe, easyanticheat_eos.exe.