Arc Raiders has somehow done the impossible and made the solo extraction shooter experience a mostly friendly, co-operative environment, and I’m under no illusions I’d be having a slightly less enjoyable time if proximity chat wasn’t a feature and everyone was shoot-on-sight. That said, I’m also no stranger to its PvP; in fact, I got trigger-happy just last night when another player didn’t respond to my “You friendly?” call on the mic, or my subsequent “Don’t shoot!” emote in-game. Sticking a few Ferro IV shots into their dome as they were trapped in a small room was easy, but it also felt… good?
Maybe that’s just the Anvil blueprint and rare upgrade materials I looted off their corpse talking, but Arc Raiders pairs the PvE vs. PvP experience magnificently. It’s so good that developer Embark Studios shouldn’t let it go full PvE — that would ruin what makes Arc Raiders so great.
You cannot exclusively partake in only its PvE or PvP components, because engaging in one always runs the risk of attracting the other. This constant threat from multiple sources means combat is more complicated than wondering “Do I want or need to kill this enemy/raider?” and since there’s a fairly significant chance another player could end up being an ally, there could even be a sense of guilt if you decide to fight them.
Image: Embark Studios via Polygon
So when you start shooting, you risk a couple of things. Firstly, other Arc enemies may hear the commotion and come knocking. Dealing with one Wasp or Hornet may not be too difficult by yourself, but when there are multiple, you’re in for a rough time. Unlike other genre mainstays — like Escape From Tarkov, where non-player enemies are human and most of them can be taken down fairly quickly — the robots patrolling every map in Arc Raiders don’t bleed. Most Arc enemy types can take an absolute beating, sans the Tick, Fireball, and Pop.
Then there’s the risk of attracting other raiders, and you truly have no clue whether they’re going to be friendly, hostile, or friendly at first as they help you kill the drones, before turning hostile and shooting you in the back when you’re looting. At the end of the day, it is a PvP, game so you can’t blame them, but it’s still very feelsbadman.jpg.
In my experience, I’ve mostly run into the former in Arc Raiders, but how long will that last for? We’ve already seen ridiculously impressive Arc Raiders clips, such as the first player taking down a Queen (essentially the toughest enemy in the game right now, akin to a boss fight), showing players are gearing up at speed. While that may be an edge case, as it was a streamer whose job it is to play Arc Raiders and games like it all day long, the general public won’t be too far behind. When the average stash is kitted out with rare-, epic-, and legendary-tier gear, and most players have finished all of the quests, they won’t think twice before going topside with a bloodthirsty look in their eyes.
Image: Embark Studios via Polygon
There have been loads of requests from players for a PvE-only mode in Arc Raiders ever since the game launched, and for understandable reasons. Some parts of the game, such as taking down the Queen, will be unachievable for almost everyone who exclusively plays solo, and there’s no beating around the bush: that sucks for them. And I say that as someone who is unfortunately also in that boat.
Being shot unsuspectingly when you’re just trying to hop in, complete a quest, then extract again — or when you’ve unexpectedly found some high-tier loot and you have a sudden urgency to hightail it to safety — also sucks. Losing your gear permanently is a terrible feeling, and it can be enough to make someone quit playing for the day, or start looking for vengeance. PvP can also simply be tiring; Arc enemies, while difficult to fight, are much more predictable and don’t take anywhere near as much mental energy.
While that could work for certain limited time events, like ones geared solely towards taking the Queen down in a contained area, almost like an Elden Ring boss fight or Destiny 2 raid without the preamble puzzle-solving, having an entire Arc Raiders map with PvP disabled isn’t the answer.
Image: Embark Studios via Polygon
Non-player enemies can be gamed. Their behavioral patterns will be figured out, the most effective strategies will become common, and while they’re a force to be reckoned with now, the Bombardiers, Rocketeers, and Leapers of Arc Raiders will soon be pushovers. That, in turn, removes the risk of dying, and presenting that experience to players on a PvE map will trivialize the combat. Other raiders need to be a threat for the game’s dynamics to work as well as they do.
That risk of being backstabbed by another random player is also what makes the times it doesn’t happen so much more memorable. The fact you have a “Team up?” emote, or you can jump on proximity chat and befriend someone then add them immediately after the game to run the next raid as a duo, shows Embark Studios want players to join forces for some of the tougher content. When was the last time you made an actual friend through playing video games online? I met one of my closest friends today through playing Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, but that was approaching 20 years ago. It just doesn’t happen anymore, so Arc Raiders feels impressively modern while reintroducing gaming behaviors we thought were long gone.
It’s worth acknowledging expeditions, Arc Raiders’ “prestige” mechanic, to use some Call of Duty jargon, in this conversation. Arc Raiders doesn’t have seasons or a battle pass per se, but it does replace the concept of server wipes — when everyone loses their inventory and starts from scratch to gear up again — by making it a process you opt into, one you need to complete a series of objectives before unlocking.
Image: Embark Studios via Polygon
We explain more about how expeditions work in our guide to the best Arc Raiders skills, but the essence behind it is that since it’s optional, fairly grindy to achieve, and the result is having to begin all over again… Realistically, how many players are actually going to go partake? Prestige in Call of Duty is popular because the only way players level up and unlock things is by simplifying playing the game, but Arc Raiders has such specific tasks and materials to find, losing that much progress feels considerably more consequential.
Which is to say if expeditions are wildly popular and the majority of players capable of doing them opt in, the game will likely go through waves of friendliness at the start of a new expedition window, followed by hostility being more commonplace as raiders gain more equipment and unlock skills again. Only time will tell, but for now, playing Arc Raiders feels like a landmark multiplayer shooter moment, one that will either persist for years to come, or be looked back on as a fond shared memory: “Hey, remember when we all played Arc Raiders? Man, those were good times.”
