Servers are back online for now, but raiders need to be vigilant.
It’s been a rough return to Topside. Just a day after ARC Raiders rolled out its major Headwinds update, Embark Studios found itself dealing with widespread server instability, as both ARC Raiders and The Finals were hit by coordinated DDoS attacks. For Raiders logging in during the early hours, matches became unstable, connections dropped, and what should have been a strong post-update push quickly ran into problems.
Reports of issues began surfacing overnight, with players across both games experiencing mass instability. While Embark initially managed to restore some level of server stability, the situation deteriorated again as the DDoS attacks continued. As of the time of writing, servers have since been restored, but the disruption cut into what was meant to be a big moment for ARC Raiders following Headwinds.
Embark community manager Ossen addressed the situation directly, telling players that both games had been under “extensive, co-ordinated DDoS attacks”. She explained that the studio’s strike team had been working on mitigations and solutions to fix the problem, adding that good progress was being made eventhough the attacks were still ongoing at the time. Alongside the server response, Embark were also preparing a hotfix to resolve issues and unintended changes introduced with the Headwinds update, with further updates promised as more information became available.
Only a couple of hours later, Ossen returned with a more positive update, saying that the team were “noticing that servers are recovering”. She thanked players for their patience and asked Raiders to continue flagging any additional issues they encountered.
Headwinds hotfix addresses unintended changes from the update
The effort to stabilise servers coincided with work on a hotfix targeting unintended changes introduced by the Headwinds update. These included altered fire rates on several weapons, some earned cosmetics going missing from the customisation menu, and parts of the Ukrainian localisation appearing in-game unintentionally.
In a detailed message to the community, Ossen confirmed that Embark were rolling out a hotfix to address the most impactful issues identified so far. Xbox players were affected by a delay, with the platform temporarily unable to access the update. During this period, Xbox players would also be unable to use cross-play while the team continued working on the fix.
Among the changes, the hotfix corrected unintended fire rate changes to several weapons. In a developer note, Ossen clarified that the reduced rate of fire was caused by a bug and “was not an intentional change”. She added that Embark aim to include all gameplay changes in patch notes, and thanked players for flagging the issue quickly.
The update also fixed an issue where some cosmetics available through Raider Tokens were missing from the customisation menu if they hadn’t been purchased yet. Localisation issues were addressed as well, after parts of the Ukrainian language appeared in-game unintentionally. Ossen noted that Embark are actively working on a full Ukrainian translation, alongside other languages for ARC Raiders, which will be released once ready.
Looting speed was another point of focus. Following player feedback, Embark rebalanced the speed at which the first item appears when looting. The slower looting speed prior to version 1.13.0 was unintended, while players with Looter’s Instincts unlocked will still see loot appear faster than those without.
As many players will already be aware, this is not the first time video game servers have been affected by DDoS attacks. Back in October, Steam, PlayStation, Xbox, Riot Games, and Epic Games all went down simultaneously, after being hit by a large-scale DDoS attack.
This only means Embark is going to be extra vigilant to watch out and prevent such attacks in the future. For now though, its servers are back online and stable once again, the Headwinds hotfix is rolling out across platforms, and Raiders can get back into the fight, even if the update’s launch didn’t quite go according to plan.
