Stop the petition: The Rocketeer mimicking the Vaporizer's alert noise was actually a bug, and it's been fixed in Arc Raiders' latest patch

With the launch of Arc Raiders' Flashpoint update last week, the reigning king of evil enemies, the Rocketeer, had its alert sound replaced. It happened to match, of all things, the new Vaporizer enemy, which coincidentally usurped the Rocketeer's crown for being a right pain in the arse to fight.

This change was met with a sizeable backlash as it broke the established rule that each machine has a unique, easily identifiable alert noise while they blast you to smithereens. A petition to revert the noise on Reddit reached over 5,000 upvotes, and there have been waves of posts begging Embark to walk it back: "I am aware of ZERO PEOPLE who are happy that the iconic Rocketeer audio got dropped," one post reads.

No petition needed, as it turns out that this controversial tweak wasn't actually intentional at all. The Arc Raiders 1.23.0 patch notes (which are live now, after a one-day delay yesterday) kick off by fixing the bug that caused the Rocketeers to "use an incorrect combat alert sound," which now belongs wholly to the devil incarnate (the Vaporizer). Welcome back, terrifying Rocketeer dubstep, how I've missed you.

Speaking of Arc, this update also addressed numerous issues with the divisively challenging Close Scrutiny map condition. Namely, all the enemies summoned by the Assessor will now leave the area and despawn if they're idling around with no one to shoot at for a while, so the map isn't infinitely swarmed by machines long after the Assessor's been cleared. The movement speed for Rocketeers and Vaporizers has also been changed "so they don’t behave strangely while idling." None of the fixes makes Close Scrutiny any easier, mind.

My favourite patch note comes in the gameplay section, where Embark has tightened the screws on item swapping, which had become weirdly clunky after the update. The main fix is to an issue that was preventing you from using an item (like healing) immediately after swapping if you were holding the fire button, so it should flow smoothly once again.

And if you were abusing Trigger 'Nades, well, you won't be any longer. Embark has cracked down on the bug that caused two Trigger 'Nades placed next to each other to sometimes deal triple the damage. If anything, this tweak likely makes Close Scrutiny harder in this patch, so keep dreaming if you were hoping for nerfs to this map condition.

Arc Raiders roadmap: New and improved
Arc Raiders best skills: Survive the surface
Arc Raiders best weapons: Just don't lose them
Arc Raiders Expeditions: Retire your Raider
Arc Raiders quests: All the missions and how to beat 'em
Arc Raiders Weather Monitor Project: Beat the wind
Arc Raiders Trophy Display Project: Big game hunter