ARC Raiders

The most common complaint: 26% of all reviews and 38% of negative reviews mention cheaters, hacks, aimbots or wallhacks, rising to 37% of reviews from players with 200+ hours versus about 5% of those under 10 hours. Reviewers say the cheaters gather in high-value and PvP-heavy lobbies such as Stella Montis and night raids. They describe ESP that reveals position and even inventory value, cheats "freezing your hitbox", spinbots, players spawning hatches at their feet, and fresh level-0 Steam accounts running maxed gear. Much of the anger is about enforcement: bans reported as 30 days or a three-strike policy instead of permanent, ban evasion through Family Sharing and cheap bought accounts, and emails telling players their report helped ban a cheater with no lost kit returned. Some reviewers say the Denuvo and kernel anti-cheat layers added over the first half of 2026 hurt performance without stopping the cheaters. A minority of positive reviewers say the problem is overblown outside top PvP lobbies, and a few noted improvement after ban waves in mid-2026.

12.5% of reviews (16% of negative ones) talk about rats, campers, betrayal or being shot in the back. The typical story: spend 20 minutes fighting ARC or completing a trial, then die in two seconds at the elevator to someone silent in a dark corner or to a "friendly" who waited for you to turn around. Players say the design rewards this: first shot almost always wins, time-to-kill is short, third-person camera peeking gives risk-free information, and death flares advertise weakened players. Couples and parents who bought the game to play with a partner or child say the ambushes drove them away. PvP players counter that ambushes are part of the genre, but even they complain about endless third-partying.

14% of reviews (18% of negative ones) complain that the game went stale. Players say they exhausted quests, blueprints and workbenches within 50 to 150 hours, that the Riven Tides map (spring 2026) was small and underwhelming, and that new ARC feel like reskins. Many bring up the announcement of a six-month major-update cadence, and some call it the moment they gave up on a game promoted with a "ten-year plan", especially while the store kept getting new skins and recolors. Expeditions (optional wipes) draw specific anger: capping skill-point rewards after the third expedition, changing requirements with a week's notice, and a UI that promised skill points for the fourth before swapping them for blueprints. Some say they will judge the October 2026 update before returning.

6% of reviews (9% of negative ones) mention duplication, a ruined economy or the ubiquitous duped Bobcat IV and Tempest IV. Repeated dupe exploits flooded lobbies with maxed weapons, and third-party sites sell full stashes for a few dollars, so loot stopped feeling valuable and PvP became a Bobcat mirror match. A new dupe shipped with the July 2026 patch, and the fallout split players again: some wanted a forced stash wipe, while others were banned or had currency wiped for touching an exploit they say was easy to trigger by accident, and resent that exploiters were punished harder than cheaters.

About 5% of reviews report technical trouble, most of it tied to updates: crashes mid-raid that forfeit the whole loadout, corrupt-file errors, the game refusing to launch without deleting anti-cheat files, full PC shutdowns attributed to the anti-cheat, FPS drops after the Unreal Engine and anti-cheat updates, desync, packet loss, rubber-banding and server disconnects with no way to rejoin. Linux and SteamOS players were locked out when the June 2026 anti-cheat update landed (a Proton hotfix later helped some). Several note that crossplay breaks when console and PC patches arrive on different days.

A smaller, angry group reports permanent bans they say they did not earn: from transferring stash items to a second account before an expedition, from gifting weapons to friends, from picking up duped items, from a hijacked Steam account, or from a family member's actions via Family Sharing, sometimes months after they last played. They describe support that gives no reason, closes tickets with templated or AI chatbot replies, and offers no human review, and they contrast this with cheaters who get temporary bans.

About 5% of reviews complain about balance: a Bobcat/Vulcano/trigger-grenade meta, cheap starter guns competing with endgame ones, and nerfs to durability, crafting costs, the Wolfpack, Deadline, snap hook, Survivor augment and loot rates, while ARC were buffed. Players say the changes make progression feel pointless and push them into free kits.

Reviewers cite store prices of $20 to $25 for skin bundles in a paid game, recolors sold as new sets, few earnable cosmetics once the early Raider Decks ended, and promotional crossovers as evidence that the studio prioritizes the shop. A minority defend the store as fair because nothing is pay-to-win.

Around 3% of reviews call the community or proximity chat toxic or describe racial and homophobic slurs and harassment; some also mention loud music played over the mic, and some ask for better moderation or muting tools.

Some players describe loading into raids 10 to 20 minutes in, with loot gone and the event boss already dead, sometimes several matches in a row while carrying an expensive kit. Others list queues of five minutes or more in low-population regions (Oceania and Asia especially), solos matched against duos, and duos against trios or pre-made Discord groups of six or more.

Small stack sizes, a clunky stash, no loadout presets (which the Chinese version has), an unreliable quick-use wheel and too much time spent in menus before each raid come up regularly.

A handful of players say the AI-voiced traders and characters feel flat and break immersion; a few note that some roles were later recast with real actors.