Author: Game Infliction

A new Arc Raiders duplication glitch has fans worried about exploits, but others just want to know why it’s being used to spawn mountains of rubber duck trinkets.

The Headwinds update brought new content, alongside fresh gameplay tweaks, when it launched for Arc Raiders players across PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X | S earlier this week. While the 40+ level matchmaking option, Solo vs. Squads, was positioned by developer Embark Studios to be its big selling point, some players are more concerned with the return of an item duplication exploit and how it has affected the in-game (duck) economy.

Although players are no doubt using the dupe glitch to amass piles of rare items like blueprints, it seems a few fans are manipulating the system to make some serious coin – and maybe even a quick joke. The duck has slowly become a bit of a running gag for fans on its own, as the squeaky bath toy is one of a few lightweight trinkets that can be found topside and then sold in Speranza for a decent chunk of Raider Coins. It also happens to be the sillier items in Arc Raiders, so when a recently patched dupe glitched returned in a new form, those looking to exploit the system knew just what to do.

Those who are discovering topside players with hundreds of ducks, however, are just confused.

“Did we come across the duck Santa Clause or something?” one Reddit user said a few days before the launch of Headwinds. “Dupe hacking gone wild? At first we thought it was some joke because the stash was just full of ducks but then we realized they were stacks of 15 ducks each.”

“Okay so I actually came across a guy in blue gate in a random house just spamming ducks on the ground,” another replied. “I assumed he was duping. The floor was littered with them, probably like 100 of them. He wouldn’t respond and kinda just stared at me til I walked away.”

Arc Raiders’ mallard problem has only gotten bigger in the aftermath of Headwinds, as the January content update also introduced a handful of more valuable (and more vibrant) ducks to collect as part of the new Bird City map condition. It’s resulted in an abundance of ducks across Buried City…and some very awkward moments.

“A raider caught on fire in Buried City Metro, went down without saying a word, and left behind a mountain of Familiar Ducks,” another user shared. “I extracted with $2.8M. Still confused.”

“Was doing the pharmacist quest for Lance, heard the tell tale duck noise…came upon this silent raider,” one person said, sharing a picture of a solo Raider standing alone in a dark attic.

Referencing a recent cyber-attack against Embark and Arc Raiders, someone replied, “This must be what brought down the servers. DDOS (Duck Duplication on Server).”

In a game that constantly sees players backstabbing each other for a small chance to net worthwhile resources, it’s hard to deny the comedy in PvP players only finding stacks upon stacks of little rubber duckies. Still, it’s definitely the kind of thing Embark promised to clean up earlier this month. Players have complained of cheaters and exploiters in Arc Raiders for weeks, so as goofy as these issues are, they are still causing some players to worry that others have an unfair advantage.

It’s especially concerning for those who have kept up with Arc Raiders updates since launch. Embark issued update 1.12.0 January 20 and fixed a handful of exploits, including an item duplication glitch. It took less than a week for players to begin reporting what appears to be a new version of the exploit, and it’s unclear how long it will take for the developers to publish a new patch or how many other glitches will be discovered in the meantime.

The Arc Raiders cheater crackdown has seen holes plugged in Stella Montis to try and ward off wall explolits, while some players, like streamer Tfue, have found themselves banned (and then unbanned) without notice. As Embark tries to bring cheats to a halt, players are still finding the fun both in and outside of the game. Some have even looked to the real-world Stella Montis hotel to leave positive reviews. Others are just enjoying Headwinds while they wait for everything else promised in the 2026 roadmap.

For more, you can read about why we think the best Arc Raiders loot needs a serious buff. You can also check out why Embark believes players who spawn into a raid late actually benefit more than most.

Image credit: endgame2937 / reddit.

Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).

Just one day after the announcement of Genie, Google’s generative AI-powered virtual world creator, a number of major video game companies are seeing their stock prices tumble, seemingly because some investors think you can just generate an entire video game with AI now.

Of course, that’s not what Genie is. Genie essentially lets you create a virtual “world” by offering prompts to describe the environment, a main character, and first or third-person view. Once it’s created, you can control the described character and wander around the world you’ve made.

And that’s…kind of it? While you can walk around these virtual spaces with your keyboard, critically, there’s nothing else you can really do. There are no game mechanics, there’s no one to talk to, no goals, no scores or meaningful interactions. Additionally, each generation is limited to just 60 seconds. And while you could maybe argue that this is just the first step on a road to eventually getting AI to generate playable 3D video games, there’s no real evidence yet that such a thing is possible, or that the games would be good or even coherent. The Verge, for instance, tried to basically copy Breath of the Wild using Genie, and while they got something that essentially looks identical, that’s just it. It’s not playable, the “Link” looks kind of frightening actually, and Genie had to copy something that already existed to make this. It didn’t come up with this on its own.

But that hasn’t really stopped a lot of investors from suddenly jumping off the video game train, a conclusion first posed by Investing.com and shared by others, including Bloomberg journalist Jason Schreier. Perhaps the most notable decline is Take-Two Interactive, which reached a six-month low this morning and, while it rallied somewhat by the closing bell, still ended down 8%. Engine maker Unity is in a similar spot, dropping 24% today also to a six-month low. Roblox stock also cratered today by 13% by close today, though notably Roblox has been on a downward trend since November. Still, it’s a six-month low for Roblox, too.

Not every gaming company is seeing a massive nosedive. Ubisoft is technically down 7% today, but with its stock down to just $1/share, any small movement in either direction will seem significant. The company has been in pretty dire straits for months, even years now, and its announcement of more layoffs, closures, and cancelations earlier this month already had stock even further in a downward spiral. EA stock hasn’t changed much today at all, but that’s understandable, given EA announced last fall that it was preparing to sell to an investor group headed up by the Saudi Arabian government and will soon exit the public trading market. Meanwhile, Nintendo stock, down just under 5% today at the time this piece was written, has been all over the place all month, following a steady downward trend since November.

The pattern I’m seeing here between Take-Two, Roblox, and Unity is a sudden distrust not in games as an idea, but rather concerns about “platforms”. Unity is a game engine. People use it to make games. If Genie can also make games, who needs Unity? In Roblox’s case, Roblox is a pure user-generated content (UGC) factory – something that would likely become obsolete quickly if Genie took over. And for Take-Two, the publisher is about to release Grand Theft Auto VI later this year (we hope), which would very likely be accompanied at launch or not long after with some new version of GTA Online. While the current GTA Online doesn’t rely on UGC, there have been recent suspicions this new version might. Again, the thinking here is seemingly that if people can just make their own little games in Genie, why would they bother doing it in Roblox or GTA or Minecraft or Fortnite or Unreal or anywhere else (Microsoft, for its part is too big to see any stock impact from Genie today and Epic Games is not publicly traded).

Is selling shares of major game publishers going to pay off for these investors? I’m not a stock expert, but if nothing else, it doesn’t seem to be like a good idea to bet against GTA 6 right now (though Take-Two’s earnings are next week, so we’ll see I guess). And while Genie doesn’t seem up to the task of making a whole video game out of nothing, plenty of other studios are coming out on one side of the fence or the other on using generative AI of any kind in their work. It seems that one way or another, the folks betting big money on generative AI will reap whatever harvest of that investment there is sooner rather than later.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.