Arc Raiders studio confirms AI anti-cheat is tracking player behavior

It's never nice to be in the same lobby as a player who relies on cheats, whether it's being killed from absurd distances in an instant, being visible even through walls, or coming up against someone with a bag of loot they didn't acquire legitimately. It feels bad in any multiplayer game, but in a game like Arc Raiders, where your equipment can be lost forever, it can be a dealbreaker for further runs.

Embark Studios just put out an explainer on Arc Raiders' anti-cheat system, how important machine learning is to rooting out cheaters, and how ban appeals are always reviewed by a human, even if it may not seem like it sometimes. Players who have been on the receiving end of an impossible fight can be hopeful for the future.

The post discusses protecting fair play and details a new kernel-level detection system. While it's all fairly standard stuff so far, what stands out to me is the usage of telemetry data and how some cheaters are abusing the existence of accessibility devices to fly under the radar.

Differentiating legitimate and illegitimate uses of accessibility devices is a potential minefield, as studios cannot, and should not, in my opinion, exclude those with specific needs from enjoying their games. Embark has trained various models to analyze patterns of play to distinguish legitimate use from abuse and states that "this is a process that continues to be refined, but we're dedicated to the work."

An automated process like this is more efficient for the type of scale that Arc Raiders is working with, but occasionally, some players may be wrongly submitted to the ban hammer, and for that, there is allegedly always a human involved in reviewing appeals. While the replies are pre-written, Embark assures that it looks into each case, using the data (whether the player is found guilty or not) to further refine their systems.

Arc Raiders has been caught in the crosshairs of AI usage before and has been cutting back on its use of generative tools to create something that they say is better than AI. Although creating content with artificial intelligence is something I stand firmly against, utilizing it to stamp out cheating is a worthwhile endeavour, and a correct use of these tools.

I live in hope, and while I haven't come across too many cheaters in my time Topside, even one is too many. Protecting and differentiating those with accessibility needs from cheaters is a noble endeavour, and I'm glad to know Embark is taking this seriously.