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There's been more duplication exploits in Arc Raiders at one point or another than I can shake several suspiciously identical sticks at. It's the get rich quick scheme that a lot of raiders opt in to, there's been multi-million rubber duck hauls and prisons made of just ziplines. It seems like there's no end to the creativity of a dupe exploit, but Embark has confirmed that it's been cracking down on them.

"Like with anti-cheat, we are always working against duplication exploits. We’re keeping a close eye on the game economy, and constantly catalogue, investigate and seek to counteract exploits," Embark explains in the latest patch notes. "Recently, we’ve fixed some exploits related to duplication. We always want to make sure fixes are widely effective, so we make sure to monitor and evaluate our success before sharing that progress with you."

The most interesting part of this is the graph Embark includes as part of their update on tackling cheaters. It shows the percentage of players "with unusually high 'profit per minute'". Looking at the graph, you can see that things got particularly bad towards the beginning of June, which may have coincided with the 1.33.0 update that tested a ban on free loadouts.

Since then, however, things have gotten better. The percentage of players that may be guilty of using duplication exploits has apparently dropped to under 1%, the lowest it's been in months.

As for the regular old cheating Embark also notes that work on snuffing that out has been going well: "Over the past few weeks, we’ve completed our rollout of Denuvo Anti-Cheat. It is now enforced for all players, and the results we’ve seen so far have been promising. Thanks to the efforts of our anti-cheat team, we are continuously getting more effective at identifying and acting against cheaters."

Embarks recent efforts to rid Arc Raiders of cheating have seemingly gone quite well over the last few months, as it's treated as a "top priority" for the team to handle. All I can say is, good. Cheating in Arc Raiders was a right pain, and one of the reasons I stopped playing as much as I used to. So let's hope it's only up from here.

Everyone likes Subnautica 2. We sure do: after all that drama, it turns out the early access survival sequel is quite good, actually. Players also dig it: it's got smashing reviews on Steam and it sold a million copies in its first hour on its way to more than four million in its first week.

One little point of contention: Subnautica 2 is home to a collection of large, angry alien fish that love to bite you and endlessly headbutt your submarines—and unlike the first Subnautica, players didn't have a knife to fight back with.

And so the controversy arose. Players (some of them, anyway) want to be able to kill these angry, annoying, dangerous fish, but the developers have remained steadfast in their no-killing policy. Modders came up with their own solution, a Subnautica 2 mod where you can kill all the fish you want, but today the game's creative director Anthony Gallegos revealed a new solution: a stun system.

You can already discourage fish from biting by using the sonic resonator, but in tomorrow's 1.1 update, you'll really be able to knock them for a loop.

"We've done some work on the sonic resonator, where a bunch of the creatures now have stun states, so when you hit them with the sonic resonator, you'll see them clearly communicate that they've become stunned," Gallegos said in a Subnautica 2 update vlog.

It's demonstrated in the video, showing a marrowbreach taking a sonic blast to the face and, instead of just turning and swimming away, it goes limp and slowly sinks to the bottom of the sea. Hell yeah. It might not be as satisfying as gutting one with a knife, but it'll still be plenty cathartic to scramble its brains for a bit—though there's no word on how long the stun state lasts.

You can also see more clearly the results of bonking fish with your cute little hammer. "We've done some work around creature flinches, so most of the creatures in the game now have good flinches," Gallegos said. "So, if you smack them with the survival multi-tool, you'll get that reaction out of them before they flee, to really let you see and understand the impact you're having on them."

Another enemy, the blight creatures (which you can kill with the resonator) have been modified a bit, too.

"We're trying to make it that when you encounter the blight creatures around the angel combs, there's a better transition from when they go from a passive to aggressive, and so that you can really feel that and not be as surprised of where creature attacks are coming from, which was a problem we had definitely heard in feedback," Gallegos said.

"That's all in an effort to make you feel like you're having the mitigation of creatures that we want you to feel, which has also been a major part of your feedback," he said.

You can watch the full vlog below, in which Gallegos mentions that new multiplayer features, like proximity chat and a player revive system, won't be in tomorrow's 1.1 update but will come "some weeks after that." Later this year, the "big content drop" will add a new region, vehicles, and story.

A new farm sim has launched today and, as is tradition, cozy game enjoyers gather round to ask each other: Is Moonlight Peaks worth it? I'm about 40 days (nights, actually) into my playthrough, so it'll be just a bit longer before I can deliver our scored review, but I want to give some early impressions to help all my fellow farm simmers figure out if this month's flavor is one to take a bite out of.

In my early preview of Moonlight Peaks, I called it Real Housewives of Stardew, which remains true. It's got all the usual farm sim bits (crops, foraging, farm animals, friendship, crafting, mining, fishing, etc.) but the four families of supernaturals in town are feuding something fierce. There's quite a lot of all-caps dialogue around here.

In the first few weeks, all that goofy toxic behavior is entertaining, but as I've continued playing, Moonlight Peaks feels like it can't pick a tone. It plays Orlock the vampire patriarch as a comedic relief alcoholic, which feels a bit out of touch in 2026, but then in other moments attempts to treat that tense family situation as a genuine struggle for his daughter Mina.

Meanwhile the annoyingly persistent charmer Noel seems to be going for a "there's more to me beneath this front" character arc by… just saying that out loud and then immediately going back to being shallow. Even in a genre that intentionally leans on character archetypes, these townies have felt a little one-note so far.

Not for nothing, but making the requisite 'white-haired hot guy' laughably childish while leaving the broody bartender Samael un-datable (or so it seems, based on his sole four friendship hearts) seems like a real misread on the farm simming audience. I'm happy to date one of the many ladies of the town, but the bachelor options probably aren't what most people are hoping for.

Moonlight Peaks is full of slightly odd decisions like that. I can store seemingly infinite resources in my house, but the storage menu requires so many button presses that it becomes more of a chore than organizing my chests in any other crafting game. It tracks gifts I've given to villagers, but just in a list of "recently given" that seems far less useful than a discrete list of things they like or love. It's very quest-driven, rather than being open-ended like Stardew Valley, but I'm often left without enough to do in a day because my next goal is too far off from being completed.

For all that, Moonlight Peaks is really easy to pick up and dive into. The Animal Crossing-like chibi character designs are cute, the supernatural town concept is charming, and quest directions are clear even if the pacing is a little slow. Its flower arranging and pottery minigames, and the pattern-based spellcasting are all fun touches too.

I'm glossing over the 'how it plays' bit of things, because for so many farm simming fans that never seems to be a dealbreaker. Most of us are in it for the cast of characters and their stories, while the gameplay specifics are either a little speed bump or boost on that journey as long as they include all the usual activities, which Moonlight Peaks does. I did finally find out how to go on dates in Moonlight Peaks, though, and the fact that they involve minigame activities is a little treat.

I'm not having a bad time in Moonlight Peaks, but it's hard not to look at its $35 price tag and rather average writing without thinking of Fields of Mistria's 1.0 launch coming up next month after two years of consistently excellent character writing in early access and no hike in sight for its $14 price. Farm sim fans have a lot of options these days and I'm not convinced yet that Moonlight Peaks earns its keep.

Few people are madder at Microsoft for its mishandling of id Software than Michael Maynard, a game developer of over 40 years, and id veteran of 21 years, who was caught up in heavy layoffs which hit the studio as part of widespread Xbox cost-cutting. Maynard's story demonstrates the institutional knowledge that's being sacrificed in the name of spreadsheets, with multiple studios gutted to the point that they're unrecognizable if not outright closed, and his criticism echoes the pain and fury heard around the industry.

"Big day today at Id Software!" begins a LinkedIn post from Maynard (all emphasis caps his). "We produced arguably THE BEST first person action games, in the entire industry. DOOM, DOOM: Eternal, DOOM: The Dark Ages. The [quintessential] modern trilogy of first person action!

"Yet today, Microsoft/XBOX decided half the team was no longer needed and should be let go; despite all the amazing work and effort from every designer, programmer, artist, audio specialist, level designer, fx, tech design, and on and on and on.

"Yes, I was part of the team (roughly 50% of the company) that was let go today," he continues, confirming reports on the scale of layoffs. "(I was there for OVER 20 years! RAGE through DOOM: Dark Ages) Sad but, I've been doing this (video games) for over 40 years so, not a huge surprise to me. Just really sad that this is how Id Software, the PIONEER/INNOVATOR of FPS action games is relegated to just another 'reorganization' of assets."

It really is hard to overstate the fumbling of the bag here. Id is the FPS studio, and the modern Doom trilogy is an exemplar in the genre. In its rush to save money by cutting anyone, irreplaceable knowledge be damned, Microsoft has thrown the treasure overboard just to keep the ship above water for another hour.

Microsoft's mistake in this particular arena is perhaps matched only by Sony and Bungie, which have collectively lost hundreds of the best FPS developers in the business – in their case, by squandering Destiny 2.

Id co-founder and Doom father John Romero addressed the impacted devs online, praising the people who kept the studio's legacy alive and highlighting the "real care, skill, and respect" demonstrated by recent releases.

John Romero has a private collection of "critically important" id Software history "including materials and assets that, as far as I know, id itself no longer has."