Something deeply weird is happening in Arc Raiders. Players are stumbling across dead raiders whose inventories are stuffed with hundreds of rubber ducks, extracting with millions of Raider Coins they definitely didn't earn legitimately. The extraction shooter from Embark Studios is dealing with a duplication glitch that keeps coming back, and it's turning the game's economy into a surreal mess.
The exploit surfaced prominently after the recent Headwinds update, which introduced new collectible rubber duck variants—including the Familiar Duck, worth 7,000 Raider Coins each. One player reported killing an opponent carrying over 170 of these rare ducks, representing more than 1.2 million coins in a single raid. Another described finding a raider who spontaneously caught fire in Buried City Metro and left behind a "mountain of Familiar Ducks," extracting with 2.8 million coins while completely baffled about what just happened.
What the duplication exploit actually does
The glitch allows players to multiply valuable items in their inventory—blueprints, ammunition, and those precious rubber ducks. Screenshots circulating on Reddit show players with 17 Tempest blueprints or 22 copies of the same weapon schematic, quantities that would be impossible to acquire through normal gameplay in a single raid.
The Familiar Duck has become the currency of choice for exploiters because of its high value and stack size. With ducks stacking up to 15 per slot, even a minimal loadout with 14 open inventory slots could theoretically yield over a million coins per extraction. It's essentially an infinite money printer for anyone willing to risk using it.
The community response is split between chaos and concern
Some players are treating the whole situation with bemused horror. Finding two dead raiders in Buried City Metro with nothing but full stacks of ducks—no weapons, no gear, just ducks—prompted one player to ask if they'd encountered "duck Santa Claus." Others are genuinely worried about what this means for the game's long-term health.
"If this becomes common, it's going to ruin the experience for everyone," one Reddit user wrote, calling on Embark to patch the exploit before "the whole meta gets ruined by duped gear." The concern is legitimate: in an extraction shooter where progression depends on accumulating resources and blueprints, unlimited duplication makes the entire economy meaningless.
The exploit isn't limited to ducks, either. Players have been duplicating Tempest blueprints and other high-value items, flooding the game with gear that should be rare.
Embark patched it once—then it came back
Here's where things get frustrating for the Arc Raiders community. Embark Studios released update 1.12.0, which specifically listed fixes for item and ammo duplication exploits. The patch notes claimed the holes were plugged. That was last week.
The duplication glitch is back, or players found a new method, or the patch simply didn't work as intended. Regardless, the community is calling for another urgent fix. Embark has been responsive to other issues—when the Headwinds update accidentally nerfed popular weapons like the Kettle and Venator, the studio reverted those changes within 24 hours. But this exploit has proven more stubborn.
Using the glitch carries real consequences. Players caught exploiting face strikes against their accounts, with potential 30-day or permanent bans on the table. Embark has previously dealt with cheaters in creative ways, including turning certain rooms into ovens that cook exploiters alive. Whether similar measures are coming for the duck duplicators remains unclear.
For now, if you're playing Arc Raiders and you stumble across someone with 60 rubber ducks in their inventory, you've probably found an exploiter. Feel free to take their ill-gotten gains—just don't ask how they got them.
