Arena Breakout: Infinite

Cheating comes up in 29% of negative reviews, more than any other complaint. Players describe wallhacks, radar and aimbots, some citing the kill cam: "Watching somebody track you through a hill, mountain, wall, door, whatever, then magically line up the perfect headshot the second you're visible is infuriating." Several say cheaters cluster in Forbidden, the highest-stakes mode, and a few name TV Station, while a handful find the lower modes cleaner. Reviewers also complain that bans are short, that banned cheaters return on new accounts, and that compensation covers the kit but not the loot or ammo lost. Some disagree about the scale. They say they rarely meet cheaters, and several praise the report system and refunds: "I got several messages detailing that the player was banned and that I was refunded my in-game currency for the unfair loss of my gear."

Solo players feel the game is not built for them. They describe queuing with auto-match on and still landing alone against full four-player squads, who can revive each other and cover every angle. "Very good game. Seriously frustrating solo matchmaking," one summed up. Reviewers say the dedicated solo mode offers few maps on a weekly rotation and requires a high level and a large gear value to enter, and some miss the duo mode they say once existed. Newer players raise a related problem: they say matchmaking by gear value lets veterans with thousands of hours and billion-Koen stashes run cheap kits with top-tier ammo in the starter lobbies. "I have 9 hours and I'm being dumped into lobbies with veteran smurfs with thousands of hours and no hope of extracting," one wrote.

Connection quality comes up mostly from players outside North America and Europe. Players in Australia, Africa, the Middle East and Asia report 150 to 300 ms pings, and others describe sudden spikes: "ping spikes to 200+ mid gunfight CONSTANTLY". Others complain about desync and hit registration, dying behind cover or seeing headshots register as limb hits. Stability problems cost gear: crashes mid-raid or on launch, failed reconnects, and network errors before a raid. Several reviewers say performance got worse after the Season 6 update, with stutter, frame drops and, some say, a game that no longer runs well on 16 GB of RAM.

Players complain about the lobby: dozens of event tabs, currencies and reward screens to click through after every raid, and some want a claim-all button. "I shouldn't have to click through five different menus just to find basic information," one wrote. The in-game prompt asking for a Steam review is its own grievance. Reviewers say it keeps appearing after they tick the box to stop it; some write their review only to make it go away, and a few say they left a negative one in protest. "I expect you to not remind me again," one wrote.

Reviewers say that below the top difficulty, lobbies mix in AI "operators" with player-style names. Some newcomers feel deceived when they learn their early kills were bots, and one player who says the game was better at launch now finds every match full of operators, "but in reality they are just bots who never stood a chance of killing you". Lockdown players say bot squads make noise that gives away positions and crowd out real PvP. Others say the bots help new players learn. A separate complaint concerns AI accuracy: players describe scavs and PvE enemies hitting through foliage, smoke and walls.

A cluster of angry negative reviews, many from players with hundreds or thousands of hours and real money spent, describe being banned without cheating. The ten-year bans bunch up in late September: 12 of the 28 reviews that mention one were written in the week of 21 September, and several of their authors believe monitoring or peripheral software such as MSI Afterburner, RivaTuner, Razer Synapse or the NVIDIA app triggered them. Others describe short automated bans after being mass-reported for a good raid, and one player says they were banned because a random teammate from the team finder had cheated. The common thread is support: players say appeals get template replies and no explanation of what triggered the ban. "10 years for something I did not do, with no specific explanation, is extremely frustrating," one wrote. "An anti-cheat system should be able to distinguish between cheating software and legitimate applications that players commonly use on their PCs," wrote another.

Some negative reviews are about other players' habits rather than the rules: people who sit in a corner or bush for 20 minutes, extract campers, tryhard squads and toxic random teammates who steal loot or leave. Defenders reply that patience and ambushes are part of the genre.

Experienced players say high-value loot is rare outside Forbidden and that ammo and armor prices have inflated while red items have not, and a few complain that the market's weekly listing limit gets in the way. Some want wipes because veterans sit on billions, while others value never losing progress.

A set of short negative reviews from players with under an hour describe hurdles before the first raid: a separate account registration, a request for card details to verify age, a forced tutorial, PvE and zombie modes locked behind level 8 to 12, no controller support, and no Linux or Steam Deck support, which they blame on the anti-cheat. "Why do I have to level up to play PvE? Let me play it from the start you cowards," one wrote.