Embark Studios is bowing to a vocal minority of its player base and trialing a player-versus-environment mode in its extraction shooter Arc Raiders. Between October 13th and 20th, players will be able to toggle between the game’s traditional PvP experience and a safer variant in which hostile machines remain lethal but human players cannot harm one another. The move comes after the developer identified a “large and growing group” of its community who favour co-operation over conflict, prompting Embark to formally test whether a PvE option can coexist with the genre’s signature player-versus-player tension.
The trial is built around a simple in-game switch that determines which version of the Rust Belt a player enters. In the standard mode, human players compete for valuable scraps scattered across a ruined world patrolled by killer robots. The PvE variant keeps those machines deadly, but removes the threat of other players entirely, offering a more forgiving environment for those who prefer the company of machines over the unpredictability of fellow Raiders.
A Community That Prefers Peace
According to Embark, the decision stems from observable shifts in how players engage with the game. “We’re seeing a large and growing group of Raiders who come to the Rust Belt for the co-op and the ARC, not fighting with other Raiders,” the studio said in the post announcing the trial. “That group has become a core part of our community, so it’s important we learn how to support them properly rather than leave them working around the game.”
To back up the claim, the developer shared internal data suggesting the trend is measurable. The pure PvP player base has held steady at around 34% since launch, while the number of mixed players has contracted. Many of those once-ambivalent participants appear to have settled into full-time co-operative play, spending most of their time as affable members of the post-apocalyptic society rather than dabbling in wanton homicide.
“That group has become a core part of our community, so it’s important we learn how to support them properly rather than leave them working around the game.”
Embark Studios
What the PvE Mode Actually Changes
The PvE mode Embark will test is virtually identical to regular Arc Raiders, with a handful of meaningful differences. The most obvious is that there will be zero player-to-player damage. Less obviously, the value of loot found in these peaceful sessions is deliberately lower, reflecting the reduced risk of players stealing items mid-run. Certain special events are also excluded from PvE games because they were designed around unpredictable encounters. Would Night Raids, Hidden Bunker, Locked Gate and Frigate be as much fun if players knew their fellow Raiders could stop being impromptu allies at any moment and stab them in the back for a knapsack full of goodies?
Crucially, Embark stress that the intent behind the test is not to make PvE more punishing to compensate for the loss of PvP threat. However, the machines have been tuned to be slightly more aggressive. “If you are downed by ARC’s, be a bit careful when crawling, they might re-acquire you as a target even when you are moving when downed. They will ignore you if you stay still. We’re trying this to maintain some tension to compensate for the lack of a PvP threat.”
The message to players is clear: learn to play dead.
A Genre-Wide Trend
Extraction shooters appear to be having a moment, or certainly were last year when Arc Raiders arrived. Yet a couple of the genre’s biggest titles seem to be grappling with a significant portion of players who do not want to engage with its core competitive component. Since Ubisoft’s The Division introduced the Dark Zone mode, the threat and uncertainty of other players’ intentions has been the defining source of tension in the genre. Players are never quite safe, right up until the moment they escape a map.
Embark is not alone in responding to this divide. Bungie is also working to create a PvE mode in Marathon, again aiming to appeal to players who are not looking for competition with other humans but instead seek more co-operative play. As both titles approach their respective PvE offerings, the industry will be watching to see whether removing the human threat dilutes the genre’s signature frisson or simply broadens its appeal.
Looking Ahead
The October 13th to 20th trial window offers Embark a controlled environment to gauge player reception before committing to a permanent PvE option. The results of this test could shape the game’s future roadmap, potentially influencing how the studio balances co-operative and competitive experiences in subsequent updates. For now, players who want to participate can simply flick the toggle and decide whether to embrace the Rust Belt’s chaos or its calmer, machine-guarded streets.
For the developer, the question is less about winning or losing and more about listening. As Embark’s data suggests, the community is quietly reshaping the game from the ground up, and the studio is finally taking that shift seriously.
No comments