Since Arc Raiders Tech Test 2 ended, players around the Rust belt have shown signs of a post-rare departure. Symptoms vary, The Discord community has experienced high quality research actions.
After the public preview was over, Emukirk pushed the update well. It was within 10 minutes of access, but it was enough time for the crafty raiders to dig into and find something that could potentially be announcing the release date.
Potential Easter eggs were hidden within the game’s invalid executable. As explained in reddit by user kzrts, The base64 string at the top of the Pioneergame.exe file links to the countdown.
The SHA1 hash of the executable file was verified against that of STEAMDB. It’s possible to inject SHA1 hash, but no one will experience any trouble here (if not impossible).
Custom tick counter links will count until June 6th. This date matches the start date of Summer Game Fest 2025was run by Jeff Kaley of Game Awards fame.
When will the Ark Raiders appear?
So far, the June 6th date is the only vaguely specific information available to Arc Raiders fans. but, Not everyone is sure that the countdown is the release date itself.
The second technical test for Arc Raiders has announced a game that, by our own rating, appears to be in good agreement with the release candidates.
It brings a big jump to quality from the first technical test six months ago, and is a virtually different game compared to the first Alpha test a year ago.
That said, shadowdropping a predicted game is not entirely unprecedented, but it would be a bold, potentially unlikely move.
One of the main theories today is that the Arc Raiders Hidden messages in executables are authentic. This could just be a confirmation of presenting the game at the summer game fest in June.
Whether that will lead to the announcement of a release date is still unclear. For now, the only thing the Ark Raiders are pulling off the surface is a stable supply of copies.
