Embark has adjusted the Bird City map condition in Arc Raiders after players adopted an unexpected in-game pastime: collecting vast numbers of rubber ducks. The tweak follows a community-driven shift away from conventional extraction objectives, which altered match flow and prompted developer intervention.

Arc Raiders’ early 2026 roadmap continues to draw attention, but the latest craze is unrelated to promised additions and instead centres on an emergent behaviour that saw players stockpiling novelty items across Bird City. Embark’s response was to boost the map’s condition settings, a change intended to restore the map’s intended pacing and encourage the core extraction and combat encounters.

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The studio framed the adjustment as a quick, targeted modification rather than a broad redesign, with monitoring to continue as player responses arrive. Community reaction has been mixed, with some players amused by the duck-collecting phenomenon and others welcoming measures that refocus matches on the game’s primary objectives.

Arc Raiders remains under active development, and Embark’s flexible approach to tuning maps and systems will likely lead to further refinements as the team balances emergent player behaviour against roadmap plans.