To the ARC Raiders Development Team and Community Managers at Embark Studios,
I bought ARC Raiders at launch at its highest tier and have put countless hours into this game. It used to be my way to unwind and hang out with friends. But recently—especially since the introduction of the new PvE mode—that space has become completely toxic.
I expect competitive banter and trash-talk in a shooter. What I and many other women are experiencing on a daily basis is not competitive banter—it is relentless, targeted verbal and mental abuse purely because of our gender.
The moment a woman speaks on open voice chat, men immediately resort to predictable, hateful attacks. Regardless of what anyone looks like, their go-to tactic is to weaponize weight, scream that we sound fat, call us 500 pounds, and hurl slurs calling us "whores" and "dumb bitches." In one recent incident, after a player cross-referenced my gamer tag and looked up my private Instagram page, he saw a photo and still returned to open proximity chat to scream to the entire lobby continuing to throw false insults about my physicality, and that I was there for attention because I didn't have very many followers, as he found my page that was dedicated to a select few for gaming communications amongst friends who played together strictly, encouraging a group of eight other men to surround my character and join in the mocking. He also learned that I had children and began to make comments in regards to my mental health and depression and called me Lindsay Clancey, etc.
It isn't about reality—it is about using baseless physical insult tactics, mobbing, and misogyny to belittle, humiliate, and run female players off the game.
This behavior goes far beyond basic insults:
Mobbing & Collision Exploits: Groups using in-game movement mechanics ("bully rush") to physically corner and trap female characters while screaming verbal abuse at them
Extreme Personal Threats: Being told I sound like I have postpartum depression, being told to kill my children, and kill myself and hearing over open chat that "nobody wants your spawn here."
Simulated Sexual Assault: Players exploiting character collision over immobilized or downed female characters to simulate non-consensual sexual acts while making explicit graphic threats over open audio.
Unchecked Hate Speech: Continuous, unmoderated usage of racial slurs (including the N-word and "spic"), transphobic slurs, and xenophobic threats across lobbies.
Case Study: A Single Match Incident
To illustrate how this manifests in real time, during a recent match on the new map, I made a lighthearted, joking comment over open proximity chat. Immediately, a male player turned around and attacked me, claiming I "sounded fat." Within seconds, a group of about eight other men surrounded my character, cheering him on and joining in the verbal abuse.
This kind of situation often escalated from weight insults to calling me a "whore" and a "dumb bitch," told I sound like a tranny, repeatedly using the "bully rush" mechanic to push, body-block, and physically push my character down or away or off the hill I was standing on. One player looked up my stream tag, cross-referenced my accounts to find my private Instagram page, and returned to proximity chat to taunt me in real time in front of the entire lobby about having only a small amount of followers, claiming, "This is the most attention you've ever gotten, that's why you're still standing here." Being told to get out of here, get off the game and go take care of my children or go watch dishes or to get in the kitchen. Telling me I should not return, then talking to each other about me being referred to as that fat bitch or that fat dumb bitch or that depressed bitch...etc.
When I refused to leave, the verbal attacks turned to my family and children: members of the group told me I sounded like I had postpartum depression, instructed me not to kill my kids, and another player shouted back, "Or kill yourself or DO kill your children, nobody wants your spawn here!" They continued shouting sexism—asking if anyone brought a dishwasher for me—while using in-game mechanics to corner and harass my character until the match ended. Eight men, organized in real time, using both voice chat and game mechanics to bully and harass a single female player out of a game she paid to play.
Widespread Community Toll & Player Testimonials
This is not an isolated experience. Across public community posts and discussions in player groups, female players are voicing identical stories of harassment, griefing, and emotional exhaustion:
Escalated Mechanics Abuse: Players recount being continuously cornered and body-blocked at extraction points by groups using collision mechanics, forcing women to sit in corners until match timers run out just to avoid being pushed off buttons or subjected to explicit downed-character taunts.
Targeted PvE Harassment: Multiple players note that toxic players are explicitly entering PvE lobbies to grief, stalk players to extraction, loot objectives out from under players who cleared them, and openly brag in external forums about making PvE players "regret asking for the mode."
Systemic Discouragement & Self-Silencing: Women report feeling "sick reading these stories," expressing that "it's gotten so exhausting playing ARC Raiders lately as a woman," and noting that the game serves as a disappointing reminder of online society's new hostility.
Inadequate Reporting Impact: Players consistently state that despite reporting whole groups for targeted harassment, "nothing ever seems to change," leaving female players feeling unsafe, depressed, and forced off voice chat entirely or the game entirely.
The Mental Health Toll and Platform Liability
This level of sustained harassment is not "just a game"—it is severe, targeted cyberbullying. For many players, gaming is an outlet to manage daily stress and connect with friends. Subjecting players to relentless mobbing, personal threats, and sexual violence simulation causes real-world psychological distress, anxiety, and depression.
By failing to enforce basic safety measures or act on reports of severe harassment, Embark Studios is providing a platform where illegal cyberbullying and severe hate speech thrive without oversight. Neglecting player safety to this degree exposes a studio to massive reputational fallout and creates real legal liabilities when a platform knowingly allows extreme harassment, doxxing, and threats of violence to occur unchecked.
Reporting individual players in these situations feels completely useless. When an entire group joins in on the abuse, an automated threshold system that only looks at single accounts does nothing. The total lack of visible consequences gives these players free rein to say and do whatever they want without fear of being banned.
I didn't buy this game to be verbally abused, doxed, sexually harassed, and told to harm my family. Embark needs to take responsibility for the safety of its player base and prove that this extreme hostility against female players is not acceptable in this community.
