Players keep finding dead raiders surrounded by mountains of rubber ducks in ARC Raiders

Finding the item you need in ARC Raiders is always satisfying, whether it's a blueprint or a simple spring. However, after the Headwinds update, players seem interested in only one thing – rubber ducks.

The patch added numerous new collectible rubber duck variants, along with the Bird City event. Among the new ducks are some pretty interesting versions, including one that looks like Scrappy the loot rooster. But what's truly puzzling is that players are increasingly stumbling upon raider corpses surrounded by entire mountains of rubber ducks.

Reports indicate dead raiders are literally drowning in duck piles. Who put them there? Why are there so many ducks? Could this be some kind of narrative element from Embark Studios? No one has answers yet.

Some players speculate it might be the work of duck Santa Claus. Others believe it looks like a duck duplication exploit that got out of control and is "crushing" players like a duck steamroller.

The sheer number of ducks, especially the rare Familiar Duck, suggests someone really did find an item duplication exploit. Perhaps players were trying to profit by copying rare ducks. As for their demise, Embark Studios has previously punished players for using exploits, so it's possible the raiders were killed by the developers themselves, with the ducks simply dropping from their inventory.

For now, this is just a theory. Maybe carrying that many ducks is simply deadly, or maybe it's another bug. But the idea that developers built in protection against duplication by making violators spontaneously drop dead is rather amusing.