Item duplication glitches have become one of the most contentious issues in ARC Raiders during early 2026. Players are duplicating throwable items like Familiar Ducks, Trigger Grenades, and Snitch Scanners, then using them to flood matches with explosives or sell duplicated goods for in-game currency. The natural question for anyone tempted — or anyone frustrated by the exploiters — is whether Embark Studios actually bans people for duping.
Quick answer: Yes, exploiting bugs or glitches for unfair advantage is explicitly listed as a bannable offense in Embark's official Ban and Enforcement Policy, and penalties range from temporary suspensions to permanent bans and hardware bans. In practice, however, enforcement against dupers has been slow and inconsistent, with many players reporting no consequences even after being reported with video evidence.
What Embark's Ban Policy Actually Says About Exploits
Embark's enforcement policy, last updated on February 9, 2026, lists "exploiting bugs or glitches for unfair advantage" as one of the specific reasons an account can be banned. The policy uses both temporary and permanent bans depending on severity, and for serious violations, Embark can issue hardware bans that are final and cannot be appealed. Bans can also extend across all Embark-published titles, not just ARC Raiders.
The policy also addresses Steam Family Sharing directly. Enforcement actions may affect all accounts using a shared license, which closes a loophole that cheaters previously exploited by cycling through Family Shared accounts after receiving 30-day suspensions. Embark adopted a three-strike system in January 2026 that escalates to a permanent ban on the third offense.
How Duping Works in ARC Raiders
The duplication glitch affects any item that can be thrown and then collected again. This includes Familiar Ducks (a high-value sellable item), Trigger Grenades (one of the strongest throwables in PvP), Snitch Scanners, and zip lines. The exploit is simple enough that it works on every platform — PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox — and does not require any third-party software or network manipulation.
Players can duplicate items by manipulating quickslot assignments during a raid. Splitting items between two quickslots and then recombining them causes the game to register extra copies. The entire process takes only a few seconds per cycle, meaning a player can generate hundreds of items in a single match. The game does have a rudimentary anti-duping measure that causes a player's character to catch fire and die mid-match if duplication is detected, but this does not prevent other players from picking up the duplicated items left behind.
Why Duping Is a Problem Beyond Just Money
Duping Familiar Ducks for in-game currency is annoying, but the real gameplay damage comes from duplicating combat items. Players have reported encounters where entire hallways in locations like the Seed Vault were coated in hundreds of Trigger Grenades, causing severe lag and unavoidable deaths. In Trios, dupers can spam the best grenades in the game without any resource management, which fundamentally breaks PvP balance.
The exploit also distorts the informal player-to-player trading economy. ARC Raiders has an active item-for-item trade community on Discord and Steam forums, and Embark has stated it wants to promote player trading. Duped items — particularly high-value ducks and rare blueprints — have flooded these trading channels, undermining the value of legitimately obtained gear. Some players report that trades now demand stacks of duplicated ducks instead of seeds or blueprints.
Competitive modes are affected too. Players using duped Snitch Scanners in Trials can achieve artificially high scores, making leaderboard competition unfair for anyone playing legitimately.
The Gap Between Policy and Enforcement
Despite the clear policy language, the ARC Raiders community overwhelmingly reports that dupers face little to no actual punishment. Multiple players have described openly bragging about duping on social media and in-game without receiving bans, even after being reported with clip evidence. Some have claimed to accumulate tens of millions in in-game currency through duplication with no repercussions.
The frustration is compounded by the fact that even traditional cheating — wallhacks, aimbots, and teleportation exploits — has been inconsistently punished. Players who report cheaters through official channels describe rarely receiving their lost loadouts back, and the feedback loop between reporting and visible enforcement action is essentially nonexistent for most users.
There is a reasonable explanation for the delay, though. Game developers typically handle exploit-related bans in waves rather than individually. Rolling bans would reveal detection methods to cheat developers, so studios prefer to silently track abusers over weeks or months and then ban large groups simultaneously. Embark has already demonstrated this approach by patching previous exploits like the Stella Montis wall glitch and the vent extraction camp, and by implementing family-wide bans for Steam Family Sharing abuse. A ban wave targeting dupers could still be forthcoming.
What You Should Do If You Encounter Dupers
Step 1: Clip the incident. Record gameplay footage showing the duplication in progress or the aftermath — mountains of identical items, grenade spam, or other obvious signs.
Step 2: Get the offending player's in-game profile and, if on PC, their Steam profile link.
Step 3: Report through the in-game reporting system. You can also post the clip with the player's account link in the feedback channel on the official ARC Raiders Discord to encourage additional reports from the community.
Reporting is currently the only available recourse. Embark may return your lost loadout if the report is processed, though players describe this happening inconsistently.
Can You Get Banned for Picking Up Duped Items?
This is a gray area. If you kill another raider and find 40 duplicated ducks on their body, there is no practical way for you to know those items were duped rather than legitimately obtained. Embark's policy targets the act of exploiting, not the passive receipt of items in normal gameplay. No confirmed cases of players being banned solely for looting duped items from other players have surfaced. That said, actively seeking out dupers to receive free items or participating in organized duping sessions on Discord or TikTok Live carries obvious risk, especially if Embark begins tracking item provenance more aggressively.
The Bottom Line on Risk
Duping in ARC Raiders is a bannable offense under the game's terms of service, and Embark reserves the right to issue permanent and hardware-level bans for it. The practical risk right now appears low based on community reports, but that could change overnight if Embark deploys a ban wave. Studios that use wave-based enforcement often catch players who assumed they were safe months after the exploit was patched. If you're considering duping, the official policy is unambiguous — and the consequences, when they arrive, can extend to every Embark game tied to your account and hardware.
