Arc Raiders does issue hardware bans. Embark Studios' Help Center says a hardware ban stops one specific PC from opening any Embark game, is tied to the machine instead of the Embark account, and is final, with no appeal. Embark keeps it for offenses it judges severe, and in September 2026 it said it had lowered the threshold at which these bans are applied. The message that comes with it carries one of 11 error codes ending in 17, from ARAV0017 to ARAV11017.
The code is worth checking before anything else. Account bans and hardware bans look alike at first, but they block different things and clear in different ways.
Does Arc Raiders HWID Ban?
Yes. The Arc Raiders HWID ban is a documented Embark sanction, set out in the studio's own Hardware Banning help article next to its account bans. Embark's ban and enforcement policy answers the question "Are hardware bans issued?" with a plain yes, for offenses it considers "sufficiently severe."
Embark's written rules on a hardware ban come down to five points:
- The banned PC loses access to every Embark product, not only Arc Raiders.
- The ban follows the machine. Embark says it "does not affect your account."
- It covers every Embark title, so THE FINALS stops running on that PC as well.
- It has no end on Embark's side. Hardware bans are final and cannot be appealed.
- Embark's advice is to play on a different computer.
The anti-cheat statement Embark published on September 30, 2026 adds the trigger. When the studio has enough evidence that a single machine is being used for cheating, it can prevent Arc Raiders from running on that system. The same update says Embark is building a way to reach "almost all systems caught running cheat software" with a hardware ban, which it hoped to ship later in the year.
The Arc Raiders Ban Message: Account or Hardware?
The Arc Raiders ban message tells you which kind of ban you have. An account ban arrives as a ban notification, and Embark's policy says that notice always shows whether the suspension is temporary or permanent. A hardware ban arrives as an error message with a code ending in 17.
Embark's Hardware Banning article lists these 11 codes:
ARAV0017, ARAV1017, ARAV2017, ARAV3017, ARAV4017, ARAV5017, ARAV6017, ARAV8017, ARAV9017, ARAV10017, ARAV11017.
Embark's separate System Integrity Violation article files the same family, plus ARAV7017, under one line: the game has detected that "you are trying to access the game from a restricted machine," and you should use another PC. That makes 12 codes that point to a blocked machine. The Hardware Banning article leaves ARAV7017 off its list.
Other ARAV codes are not bans. Embark uses neighboring code families for a virtual machine, an active AutoHotkey or Cheat Engine process, or a disabled Windows security setting, and its Cheat Software Detected article states that this error "does not mean your account has been banned." Read the last two digits: 17 means a blocked PC, while the other families point to software, settings or install problems rather than a blocked machine.
Account Ban vs Hardware Ban in Arc Raiders
An Arc Raiders account ban locks the Embark ID, while an Arc Raiders hardware ban locks the PC. Embark's Help Center and its anti-cheat update describe the two like this:
| Point | Account ban | Hardware ban |
|---|---|---|
| Locks | The Embark ID | The PC |
| Length | Temporary or permanent | Final, no end date |
| Appeal | One per restriction, while active | Not allowed |
| Other Embark games | For serious violations | All of them |
| Embark's fix | Appeal or wait it out | Use a different PC |
Embark also runs a third restriction that follows the copy of the game rather than the person or the machine. Its September update says a sanctioned copy can no longer be used with another account, and accounts that were ever tied to a banned copy get a permanent ban too. With Steam Family Sharing, every account on the shared license is linked for enforcement, so a single ban can cut off every family member's access on that platform.
An account ban can go through an Arc Raiders ban appeal with Embark support while the restriction is still active. A hardware restriction cannot, because Embark's Ban Appeals article lists hardware restrictions as final. Embark's hardware ban has neither a published length nor an appeal route, which is the first thing to check when you compare it with HWID bans at other studios.
What Embark Documents and What It Doesn't
Embark Studios documents what an Arc Raiders hardware ban does, not how it recognizes the machine. Neither the Help Center nor the September 2026 update names a single hardware identifier, so any list of serials that Arc Raiders supposedly reads is a guess, however confident it sounds. Frustrating if you want certainty, but that is the record as it stands.
- Documented: hardware bans exist, are reserved for severe offenses, follow the PC, cover every Embark game and are final.
- Documented: the hardware ban codes ending in 17 and the "restricted machine" message.
- Documented: Embark lowered the hardware ban threshold and plans to cover more systems.
- Not documented: which parts of a PC's HWID the block is matched against.
- Not documented: how long a hardware ban lasts, beyond the word "final."
- Not documented: which anti-cheat layer records the machine.
Arc Raiders' kernel-level anti-cheat is Denuvo Anti-Cheat. Embark began rolling Denuvo out in May 2026, days after naming Easy Anti-Cheat as its kernel-level layer, and finished the rollout to every player in June 2026. Its September update pairs Denuvo's kernel-level protection with detection from Anybrain and the studio's in-house machine-learning models. Arc Raiders' Steam listing also carries a kernel-level anti-cheat disclosure that names Denuvo.
Signs Your PC Is the Thing That's Blocked
A hardware-banned Arc Raiders PC gives itself away through the error code and through what happens with other accounts. Each sign below follows from Embark's own descriptions:
- The error code ends in 17 and the message says you are trying to reach the game from a restricted machine.
- A different Embark ID hits the same error on the same computer.
- THE FINALS refuses to run on that machine too.
- The message gives no end date, which fits Embark's description of hardware bans as final.
If the account is banned but the PC is not, the picture flips: the ban follows the Embark ID to every computer instead of staying with one machine. That is an account problem, and changing hardware identifiers will not touch it.
How an Arc Raiders Ban Reaches the Hardware
An Arc Raiders ban usually starts with the account. Why players get banned in Arc Raiders, how long each suspension lasts and how ban waves land are all account-level questions, and the hardware ban sits above them as a separate sanction on the PC. Embark's policy names cheats and third-party tools, attempts to bypass anti-cheat protections, exploiting bugs, boosting, account sales and real-money trading among the reasons for a ban.
A dupe glitch ban lands on the Embark ID that ran the exploit. Embark's September update says it now sanctions accounts involved in economy exploits more effectively, but it has not said those sanctions reach the hardware. Cheating is where the hardware ban comes in. Under the policy Embark set out in that update, an account caught cheating gets a permanent ban with no warning first, and the hardware ban is the tool meant to stop the same PC coming back on a fresh account.
What Clears an Arc Raiders Hardware Ban
Clearing a hardware ban on the same PC is the job of an HWID spoofer. Embark's own way back for a blocked machine is to switch computers; a spoofer gets you to the same place on the PC you already own by changing the hardware identifiers the block is tied to. What it never does is lift an account ban. A banned Embark ID stays banned whatever the hardware reports.
Saturn covers Arc Raiders with its EAC HWID Spoofer license, and the Arc Raiders HWID spoofer works on the identifiers the PC itself reports. Everything runs from one loader, and the license you hold decides which games it covers. It spoofs the CPU, the TPM, the board and SMBIOS IDs on the motherboard, RAM serials, every disk type (NVMe, SSD and HDD), the GPU, monitor EDID, the MAC address, USB devices and UEFI firmware variables, plus dozens of other unique identifiers. You do not need to reinstall Windows.
Picking between permanent and temporary spoofers decides what happens to the Arc Raiders block when you close Saturn:
- Temporary mode keeps the ban cleared only as long as Saturn is running. Close it and the original, banned hardware IDs come back. Profiles are unlimited, so if one gets banned you switch to another.
- Permanent mode rewrites the hardware IDs so they stay changed, which clears the PC itself. You get a single HWID profile; if it is banned, a new profile has to be bought.
Two limits come with it. Embark's ban policy names bypassing anti-cheat protections as a reason for a ban, and the studio says it keeps closing the routes cheat makers use around hardware bans, so playing a new account on a spoofed PC is a risk you weigh yourself. A spoofer also does nothing for a shared-license restriction, which sits on the copy of the game rather than the machine. Saturn's free trial runs for 24 hours with no card; an email is required.
Arc Raiders Hardware Ban FAQ
Can you appeal an Arc Raiders hardware ban?
No. Both the Hardware Banning and Ban Appeals articles call hardware restrictions final, and neither offers a route to challenge one. The one-appeal-per-restriction process covers account bans.
Will a new account work after an Arc Raiders hardware ban?
No. The block sits on the PC, so a new Embark ID on the same machine meets the same restricted-machine error. On top of that, Embark permanently bans any account tied to a sanctioned copy of the game.
How long does an Arc Raiders hardware ban last?
Embark publishes no end date for an Arc Raiders hardware ban. It calls the ban final, while account bans can be temporary or permanent.
Does an Arc Raiders hardware ban affect THE FINALS?
Yes. Embark applies hardware bans across all of its titles, so a PC blocked in Arc Raiders cannot run THE FINALS either.
What do Arc Raiders error codes ending in 17 mean?
Arc Raiders error codes ending in 17, from ARAV0017 to ARAV11017, mean Embark has restricted the machine. Embark's instruction for every one of them is to use another PC.
Does reinstalling Windows remove an Arc Raiders hardware ban?
Embark does not say. The only documented way back for a restricted machine is another computer, and Embark lists neither a Windows reinstall nor a game reinstall as a fix for the restricted-machine codes.