Arc Raiders First Person Mode: The Exploit That Went Viral

When players talk about Arc Raiders first person mode, they’re not talking about an announced feature, a roadmap promise, or a secret setting buried in the options menu. They’re talking about a Reddit-discovered exploit that briefly let players experience Arc Raiders from a full first-person perspective before Embark Studios shut it down less than 24 hours later.

The discovery lit up Reddit, YouTube, and Discord not because it was overpowered, but because it revealed something far more interesting: Arc Raiders can function in first person, and the experience feels radically different. Atmospheric. Claustrophobic. Genuinely terrifying.

And that’s exactly why it was never meant to exist.

How the Arc Raiders First Person Mode Was Discovered

The entire situation started on r/ArcRaiders, where a player known as Short_Satisfaction_9 posted footage showing Arc Raiders running in full first-person view. The method wasn’t a mod, cheat engine, or third-party tool, it was accessed through console commands left in the live build.

According to the player, the goal wasn’t competitive advantage. In fact, they openly admitted third person was still superior for PvP awareness. The appeal was immersion.

Seeing Arcs up close.
Feeling the scale of the world.
Experiencing fog, lighting, and sound design from ground level.

It felt like a different game.

That post spread fast, and within hours, more players were testing the same command.

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Why Embark Removed the First Person Mode Almost Immediately

Embark Studios responded with a hotfix within a day, disabling the console command entirely. The official reason was clear and blunt:

“This feature was never meant to be player-facing.”

The issue wasn’t just camera perspective. The same command allowed players to:

• Remove fog and darkness
• Bypass visual obstructions
• Alter environmental visibility in ways that directly affect fairness

Even if first person itself wasn’t an advantage, the toolset required to enable it absolutely was. Leaving it accessible would have opened the door to far more serious exploits.

Game journalists confirmed that Embark pushed the hotfix specifically to protect competitive integrity, not to squash experimentation or feedback.

What Playing Arc Raiders in First Person Actually Felt Like

Ironically, most players who tried the exploit came to the same conclusion:
Arc Raiders is worse competitively in first person, but better emotionally.

Third-person advantages are obvious:

• Corner peeking without exposure
• Better situational awareness
• Easier tracking in PvP encounters

But first person changed the tone entirely. Arcs felt bigger. Encounters felt more desperate. The world felt hostile instead of readable.

This lines up with Embark’s own past comments that Arc Raiders was designed around spatial awareness and environmental readability. Two things that break down when you put the camera too close to assets.

ARC Raiders First Person Mode and PvP Balance Problems

ARC Raiders’ PvP is built around information asymmetry. Third-person peeking, silhouette exposure, and positioning risk are intentional mechanics.

A first-person mode would:

• Remove third-person peek risk
• Increase camping efficiency
• Shrink skill expression around positioning
• Favor low-visibility ambush playstyles

In extraction shooters, perspective isn’t cosmetic, it’s balance-defining. Mixing first-person and third-person players would be impossible to balance fairly, while splitting queues would fracture the player base.

This is one of the biggest reasons Embark keeps the door firmly closed.

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So Will Arc Raiders Get an Official First Person Mode?

Short answer: almost certainly not.

Long answer: Embark has repeatedly stated that Arc Raiders’ third-person perspective is foundational to its design. Enemy readability, traversal, verticality, and PvP balance all assume an external camera.

The first-person exploit didn’t prove the mode was viable, it proved why it’s dangerous.

Other sources also noted that Embark has been actively tightening exploit prevention and anti-cheat measures, making it even less likely they’d reopen this door intentionally.

Why This Incident Mattered

Even though it’s gone, the incident matters for three reasons:

1. It showed how immersive Arc Raiders can be
   The atmosphere held up. The tension increased. The world design didn’t collapse instantly.
2. It confirmed Embark’s design philosophy
   The removal wasn’t reactionary, it was consistent with how the game has always been structured.
3. It highlighted player curiosity, not malice
   Most players weren’t chasing an advantage. They were chasing perspective and immersion.

That distinction matters when discussing future accessibility, spectator modes, or PvE-focused experiences.

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Arc Raiders first person mode was never supposed to exist, and Embark was right to remove it. Not because it was broken, but because it undermined the systems that make Arc Raiders work in the first place.

Still, the Reddit “hack” gave players a rare glimpse behind the curtain. For a brief moment, Arc Raiders felt like a survival horror game instead of a tactical extraction shooter. And even if that door is now firmly closed, the conversation it sparked isn’t going away.

If nothing else, it proved one thing: Arc Raiders’ world is strong enough that players want to see it from every angle. Even the ones they’re not allowed to have.

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