Embark Studios is about to test a mode with no player versus player combat in ARC Raiders, running from 13 to 20 October. For that week, a toggle will let raiders choose between the usual experience and sessions in which damage between players is switched off entirely. The studio has also published the survey data that pushed it into the test, and those numbers explain the shift better than any argument could. Loot values will be trimmed in the new queue, and several high-tension conditions are left out of it. Nothing so far suggests the option will become permanent.
At a glance
The test runs from 13 to 20 October, with a PvE toggle in the menu.
Zero player damage, with solos, duos and trios sharing the same sessions.
51% of surveyed players said they wanted a dedicated PvE option.
What the PvE toggle changes in ARC Raiders
The mechanics of the ARC Raiders test are set out in the announcement Embark Studios published on the game’s site, signed by Aleks, executive producer. Across the test week, every player can switch between the familiar PvPvE queue and a PvE one.
In those ARC Raiders sessions, damage between players drops to zero. The threat comes from the machines alone, and the studio leans on the co-op and social side of those runs. Solos, duos and trios all land in the same session.
A few situations sit outside the experiment. Embark Studios names Night Raids, the Hidden Bunker, the Locked Gate and the Frigate, which is to say the content built around maximum tension. The PvPvE leaderboard stays untouched by whatever happens in PvE sessions.
ARC Raiders is finally splitting its two audiences, for a week at least. Until now the game funnelled the duel-hunters and the scavengers into the same queue.
The survey numbers that moved Embark
The studio published figures from its own survey alongside the announcement, and they go into detail. The ARC Raiders player base splits into 37% friendly co-op players, 27% mixed profiles and 34% pure PvP players.
More telling still: over 70% of the friendly group and 40% of the PvP group say they want fewer hostile encounters. All told, 51% of those surveyed expressed interest in a dedicated PvE option.
PC Gamer picked up the studio’s phrasing in its coverage, with Embark Studios saying it cannot ignore what the data is telling it. The official line on the design has held firm even so, with PvP described as the heart of the experience ever since launch.
Embark writes that it wants to respect the fact that its players have different needs from the ones it first imagined. That is careful wording, and it leaves every option open for what follows.
Loot trimmed to match the lower risk
The balancing logic is straightforward. Since PvE sessions in ARC Raiders remove the main source of danger, overall loot value there will be lower.
Going the other way, PvPvE sessions pick up slightly more base loot, offsetting the higher extraction rates expected on the PvE side. The studio is adjusting both queues, each with its own correction.
That matters for anyone running an economy across several outings. A week of PvE sessions will pay less per run, and it will cost far fewer runs lost on the way out.
The maths therefore favours regulars, the players stockpiling gear over time. Someone who drops into ARC Raiders twice a week mostly gains the confidence of coming home with a full bag.
A limited test with no promises attached
Embark Studios is careful about expectations. The toggle disappears when the test ends, and the studio says there is no guarantee anything permanent will come of it, nor that a future PvE mode would look like this one.
The timing puts the test five days after Frozen Trail, the major ARC Raiders update due on 8 October. Players will have met the new map and the new machines before they get a choice of queue, which should give Embark Studios cleaner data on how each group approaches that content.
A week of data is a short run on which to settle a question this structural. What Embark will read from it is the real split between the two queues, and the behaviour of those who switch between them. That is exactly what the ARC Raiders survey could not measure.
Which leaves the question the studio raises without quite stating it. An extraction game where half the players would rather avoid the other half eventually has to make a call, and a week of testing is there to price what that call would cost.
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