ARC Raiders Has Been Silently Recording Your Discord DMs
Developer Embark Studios has released a hotfix for its upcoming shooter ARC Raiders after a software engineer discovered that the game was unintentionally storing users’ private Discord messages on their computers.
The issue was first flagged by computer engineer Timothy Meadows, who reported that the game was logging certain Discord data locally once a player linked their Discord account to the game.
According to Meadows, the stored information included private direct messages as well as Discord authentication tokens. Such tokens could potentially allow access to a user’s account if obtained by someone with access to the device.
Following the discovery, Embark Studios moved quickly to address the problem, issuing a patch designed to stop the game from collecting or storing the excessive data.
In a statement provided to Insider Gaming, a spokesperson for Discord explained that the issue was tied to developer debugging features within its Social SDK – a tool used by game developers to integrate Discord features into their titles.
“We recently became aware of an issue impacting some Arc Raiders players involving debugging features intended for developers building and testing Social SDK game integrations,” the spokesperson said.
The company added that the problem resulted in some Discord-related information from the game being stored locally on users’ devices. However, accessing the information would require direct access to the affected computer or its files.
Discord confirmed that Embark Studios has already deployed a hotfix and that additional guidance is being provided to developers. The company also said it is strengthening protections within the Discord Social SDK to prevent similar issues in the future.
Embark Studios acknowledged that its Discord integration had been logging more user data than necessary, though the studio maintained that the information was not transmitted to external servers.
The developer reassured players that the data remained on individual devices and was neither reviewed nor stored by the company.
Alongside the hotfix, Embark said it will conduct a deeper internal audit of its systems to ensure similar vulnerabilities do not appear again.
While there is no indication that the data collection was intentional, the incident has renewed concerns about digital privacy in online gaming, particularly as many modern games allow players to connect third-party accounts such as Discord for communication and social features.
The situation also highlights broader concerns around data protection on messaging platforms, as Discord has recently faced scrutiny over privacy issues while introducing new safety and age-verification measures for users.
