A weird coincidence involving Arc Raiders and a hotel in Italy has led to fans insisting that the lobby is full of rats.
Although it’s not been without some controversy, multiplayer extraction shooter Arc Raiders has been a huge success since its October launch, becoming one of the biggest multiplayer shooters of recent years.
Not only did it win Best Multiplayer at The Game Awards 2025 (beating Battlefield 6) but it was Google’s most searched game of 2025, outdoing even GTA 6.
Obviously, developer and publisher Embark Studios is reaping most of the rewards, but another beneficiary of Arc Raiders popularity has been… a random hotel in Italy.
As highlighted on the Arc Raiders subreddit, the Hotel Stella Montis, in northern Italy, has recently become inundated with user reviews from players.
If you’re a frequent player yourself, you’ve likely clocked why that is but for those of you are reading this with a baffled expression, it’s because the hotel just so happens to share its name with a map in Arc Raiders.
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A map named Stella Montis was added to Arc Raiders as part of an update in November, and it’s not anything remotely like a hotel. It’s described as a research facility and is located in some snowy mountains.
We can only assume this is a coincidence (although maybe someone from Embark Studios went on holiday there once) but Arc Raiders fans have started flooding the hotel’s user reviews on Google.
On one hand, they are overwhelmingly positive, but anyone not in on the joke, who looks past the flurry of five-star ratings, will find what sound like the ramblings of lunatics.
‘It’s awesome, just be careful because the shredders are brutal. Take cover when they scream, otherwise the bullets will hit you and you’ll be back in the lobby faster than you can blink,’ reads one, referencing the shredder enemies you can encounter in the game.
‘Never go trios here, it would be chaos and you would lose all your goop. But overall nice place to go and have fun,’ reads another (goop being an abbreviation for ‘gear on other players’).
Plenty of reviews also mention rats, in reference to the ones that can be spotted in Arc Raiders’ Stella Montis, with a few even scoring the hotel down because of it.
As such, there’s a risk that anyone checking the reviews will mistakenly believe the Hotel Stella Montis has an actual rat problem, which obviously wouldn’t be good for its business.
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On Reddit, some fans are enjoying the bit, and reckon all the positive reviews is a boon for the hotel, but others think the joke has already gone too far.
‘While this is good fun, I can’t imagine the sheer panic the management must feel getting review bombed like this (regardless of the amount of stars given),’ says rilsoe.
When one person suggests the hotel embrace its new status and double down on the joke, Jesus-Bacon counters, ‘Reviews telling guests there are rats and multiple killings in the lobby is likely to turn away business regardless of star ratings. These idiots don’t give a s*** about potentially hurting a business over a meme.’
At the time of writing, the Hotel Stella Montis hasn’t issued any sort of comment on the matter, so it’s not even clear if it’s aware of the flood of new reviews.
If it wants, it can report these reviews to Google and have them removed, since they can be considered fraudulent.
Embark Studios hasn’t said anything either and likely won’t unless it gets some especially angry emails from the Hotel Stella Montis.
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