Arc Raiders

Arc Raiders is Embark StudiosPublisherEmbark StudiosEmbark Studios is a Stockholm-based developer founded by former DICE leadership, a Nexon subsidiary since 2021. Its titles The Finals and the 2025 extraction-shooter hit Arc Raiders use Easy Anti-Cheat for kernel-mode protection, layered with behavioral input analysis and, on Arc Raiders, a limited Denuvo Anti-Cheat rollout.2 games in this family →' 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 UnrealEngineUnreal Engine (Epic Games)Epic Games' Unreal Engine is the most widely used engine in big-budget PC games. Versions 4 and 5 power a substantial share of the modern competitive shooter market, including Valorant (UE4), Fortnite (UE5), PUBG (UE4), The Finals (UE5), and Delta Force (UE5).20 games in this family → Engine 5. Embark, a Stockholm studio founded by former DICE chief Patrick Soderlund and a Nexon subsidiary since 2021, also makes The Finals. Arc Raiders sits in the extraction-shooter family alongside Escape from Tarkov, Call of Duty DMZ, and Hunt: Showdown, where a single death can mean losing the gear you brought in. Its launch was a blockbuster: a Steam all-time peak near 482,000 in November 2025, roughly 960,000 concurrent players across platforms by January 2026, more than fourteen million copies sold, and Best Multiplayer Game at The Game Awards 2025.

Arc Raiders requires Easy Anti-Cheat, including a kernel-mode driver on Windows, for online play, but Linux and the Steam Deck are supported through EACAnti-cheatEasy Anti-Cheat (EAC)Easy Anti-Cheat is one of the most widely deployed kernel anti-cheats in PC gaming. Founded by Finnish company Kamu in 2006, acquired by Epic Games in 2018, and bundled with Epic Online Services. The kernel driver loads while a protected game is running. User-mode daemons EasyAntiCheat.exe and EasyAntiCheat_EOS.exe are catalogued in the Field Guide's processes section.18 games in this family →'s Proton path and the game is Steam Deck Verified. If you are in the Denuvo Anti-Cheat pool and hit error ARAV1011 on SteamOS, make sure you are on Valve's Proton Hotfix, which is the default for this title. Because it is an extraction shooter, a cheater can take real gear from you, so report rather than rage-quit: Embark's Abnormal Match Compensation returns your loss by in-game mail when it confirms the cheat. The exact game executable and anti-cheat filenames are not cleanly confirmed in public, so this guide does not assert them.

Arc Raiders' base anti-cheat is Easy Anti-Cheat, running at the kernel level, the same family Embark uses for The Finals. EAC's kernel driver and Windows service are demand-started when the game launches and stopped when it closes, so they are resident during play rather than at boot. Embark layers two things on top: Anybrain, a machine-learning system that analyzes input and movement for statistically implausible patterns, and Abnormal Match Compensation, which automatically mails your lost gear back when it confirms a cheater killed or looted you. A consumer-trust high point is that Embark enabled EAC's Linux path and earned Steam Deck Verified rather than locking Linux out. In May 2026, patch 1.29.0 began rolling out Denuvo Anti-Cheat (kernel-level) to a limited pool, after a similar move in The Finals; Embark explicitly excluded Denuvo's DRM component. That rollout temporarily broke SteamOS with a blocking error (ARAV1011) until Valve restored play through a Proton hotfix.

Over the December 2025 to January 2026 holidays, cheaters flooded the game and the response became public: streamers including Nadeshot and Ninja spoke out, and the Steam rating slipped from Very Positive to Mostly Positive. Embark responded with tens of thousands of bans, permanent bans, Steam Family Sharing restrictions, the automatic compensation system, and ultimately the Denuvo and new kernel-level detection push of May 2026. The game was also broadly acclaimed, taking Best Multiplayer at The Game Awards 2025 and Online Game of the Year at the D.I.C.E. Awards. A separate controversy about generative-AI voice work is part of the game's public record but is not an anti-cheat matter. Sources include PC Gamer, GamesRadar, GamingOnLinux, and Video Games Chronicle.