Former Call of Duty esports star turned streamer Nick Kolcheff, better known as Nickmercs, has responded to claims that he is cheating in the hit third-person extraction shooter, ARC Raiders. A short clip of Nickmercs taking down a hornet in ARC Raiders recently went viral among the game’s community, as the streamer’s snappy aim assist made it appear as though he was using some sort of aimbot to take down the enemy. However, Nick has now responded to the allegations and explained how he is one of the few content creators who play on PC with a controller, and that it was nothing more than the game’s overpowered aim assist.
Those who keep up with content creators and streamers will likely be familiar with Nickmercs, as the former esports star has become a household name among gamers. While the 35-year-old was once a professional Call of Duty player, making his name in the competitive scene during the days of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Nick would eventually go on to join FaZe clan in 2019, which is where his career really began to take off. The streamer has since parted ways with the group and has shifted his focus to content creation around YouTube and Twitch, regularly playing the likes of Battlefield and ARC Raiders.
After Falling in Love with ARC Raiders, This 2026 Game Has Jumped to the Top of My Most Anticipated List
ARC Raiders was a surprise hit for me in 2025, and now I have another extraction shooter at the top of my most anticipated list in 2026.
Nickmercs Denies Cheating In ARC Raiders
When streaming for hours and hours almost every single day, there are often accusations of cheating thrown at former pro players turned streamers. Nickmercs is now just the latest to be accused of cheating, this time in ARC Raiders. Last week, a clip of Nick taking down a Hornet in ARC Raiders was posted to the game’s subreddit, with the poster asking, “How can I get my aim to stick like this?” While the post doesn’t accuse him of cheating, it received thousands of upvotes and comments, many of which accused the streamer of cheating. “My aim assist is nothing like this,” one user said, while another said, “That is a cheater, my aim assist [doesn’t] work like that.”
The streamer has since responded to these accusations, denying claims that he is cheating. “No. Not cheating. Sorry. Didn’t wait 20 years playing competitively to show you that I was cheating against an ARC robot,” Nick said during a recent live stream (via Jake Lucky). While Nick didn’t say much else on the matter, he did speculate that aim assist on PC could be much stronger than it is on consoles. As the streamer points out, aim assist is, historically, often much stronger on consoles than it is when a controller is plugged into a PC, but it seems to be the other way around for ARC Raiders. Many others have come to Nick’s defense with posts highlighting how strong the aim assist is in the game, especially when it comes to ARC robots.
With the right settings, the controller will automatically snap to the body of a Hornet, but players will be well aware that the easiest way to take them down is by taking out their back two rotors. This is why Nick appears to snap to the robot before pulling away and snapping again as he attempts to get the aim assist to lock onto the rotor and not the main body.
Cheating has been a hot topic in the ARC Raiders community recently, as the shooter’s massive popularity has seemingly drawn tons of cheaters to the game. Thankfully, developer Embark Studios has since responded to the issue and reassured players that it is implementing significant changes to the game’s rulesets and deploying new detection mechanisms to identify and remove cheaters. Following the statement, numerous cheaters have received temporary bans from ARC Raiders, but much of the community believes Embark should be harsher and hand out permanent bans immediately.
The studio also released the first significant update of 2026 today, as a new ARC Raiders patch was deployed for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC on January 13. The update, which brings the game to version 1.11.0, finally nerfs the controversial Trigger Nade after it dominated PvP encounters for weeks. Embark Studios has rebalanced the item’s damage falloff in order to concentrate the damage closer to the center of the explosion and deal less damage further away. It has also increased the delay time between triggering the grenade and its explosion from 0.7 seconds to 1.5 seconds.
- Released
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October 30, 2025
- ESRB
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Teen / Violence, Blood
