'Quite a few things have taken us by surprise': Arc Raiders' wallhacks caught the devs off-guard as heaps of greedy players hunted for exploits
An ongoing effort in Arc Raiders has been patching all the wall exploits that dastardly players have been using for their own selfish gain; I mean, seriously, who'd do something like that? The exploit saw players go out of bounds and even access high-level loot rooms like the Dam Control Tower. Our greed knows no limit; it even surprised the devs.
Speaking to our brand director, Tim Clark, and strategic director, Evan Lahti, Robert Sammelin, who is art director at Arc Raiders, revealed how the wall exploits were one of the more surprising community activities they witnessed players commit.
"There are quite a few things that have taken us by surprise," Sammelin says. "Other things are sort of more or less known, because we have to continuously find ways to waterproof the experience and figure out how to mitigate anything that is either generally damaging exploits or just general bugs."
I, for one, was sad to see the Dam Control wallhack kick the bucket, or I should say turn into an oven. "But Elie, it's cheating!" I hear some whiny voice say. Yeah, I guess, but it doesn't really hurt anyone, and it was a hell of a lot of fun. I showed the exploit to a bunch of random players I found on Dam, and hearing the surprise and sheer joy in their voices when it worked was an experience I won't soon forget.
But not all surprises are bad. "Seeing as the game has been in development for a long time, we've tested and tried out a lot of things throughout the years," Sammelin continues. "But whenever you launch a game and see the players utilising especially the physicality of a game like this, it is genuinely surprising, but it's mostly delightful things. We've seen players do things that we've tested out, but to a whole different level, and it's also really useful for us to find ways to tweak and patch and fix."
There have been some delightfully creative findings from the community. Whether it's the demon of Stella Montis turning the tiny map into a death maze, people using ziplines to trap other raiders like a fish in a barrel, or players managing to climb atop Rocketeers and ride them into battle.
"That was part of the DNA of the early versions of [Arc Raiders]," Sammelin says. "To have these capabilities of using gadgets and the tools and all these things at your sort of disposal and be creative with them."
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