ARC Raiders' PvE experiment has created a difficult choice for Embark

Embark is deciding whether to bring a PvE option back to ARC Raiders after players completed more than 30 million rounds during its October 13 - 20 test. The experiment let Raiders scavenge and fight machines without taking damage from each other. Executive producer Aleksander Grøndal now says the studio is examining what a permanent version might offer.

The game began as a cooperative PvE project before development problems led Embark to rebuild it around extraction and unpredictable player encounters. Returning to PvE would now involve adjusting systems developed around both threats.

There is good reason to keep exploring the option, but its rewards, difficulty and development needs deserve more attention before it becomes permanent.

Interest in PvE was already visible before the test. Embark said 51% of surveyed players expressed interest in a dedicated option, and classified 37% of its audience as friendly cooperative players. Neither figure establishes how many would abandon PvPvE entirely. Likewise, 30 million rounds measure activity, not unique participants or votes for a permanent mode.

The experiment kept other Raiders in the world, mixing solos, duos and trios. Removing damage between them allowed strangers to fight machines together without worrying that someone would turn their gun on the group afterward.

For friends with different levels of confidence in PvP, that opens up sessions where staying together does not depend on surviving another squad's ambush.

Some of the game's tension disappears with that protection. Helping someone in PvPvE involves trusting them with your equipment and whatever you have collected. A peaceful extraction feels different when everyone involved could have chosen to attack.

Embark should keep the risk of betrayal in regular PvPvE raids. A separate PvE mode would make cooperation safer, but players could still take advantage of each other. Someone could hang back while other Raiders fight the ARC machines, saving their ammunition before rushing in to collect the loot. Embark would need to consider how rewards are shared, especially when some players contribute little or nothing to a fight.

Fairly distributing loot after an ARC fight is only part of balancing PvE. Players also have a better chance of bringing their supplies home when another squad cannot ambush them on the way to extraction.

Embark accounted for this during the test, lowering overall loot values in PvE while slightly increasing baseline rewards in PvPvE. The studio had already observed that friendly players extracted more often and returned with more valuable hauls.

A smaller haul can still be more profitable if players consistently make it back alive. Embark therefore needs to consider what Raiders actually bring home over multiple runs, including the weapons and equipment they would otherwise lose.

The bigger concern is how those rewards affect progression. Players could switch between PvE and PvPvE during the test while keeping the same inventory and progression. If that continues, gathering supplies in PvE could become the safest way to prepare for more dangerous PvPvE raids.

Separate inventories would prevent that, but would also make switching between modes less convenient. Reducing PvE rewards too heavily creates another problem, forcing players who prefer cooperation to spend longer collecting the same resources.

Embark needs to reward the additional risk of PvPvE without making PvE progression unnecessarily slow. Otherwise, players may end up choosing their preferred mode based on how efficiently they can gather supplies rather than how they actually want to play.

Removing the threat of other Raiders also changes how players approach ARC encounters. In PvPvE, fighting a powerful machine can attract another squad looking to steal the loot or catch weakened players off guard. Without that danger, experienced teams can concentrate on the machine's attack patterns and coordinate their attacks without watching for an ambush.

Embark experimented with one small change during the test. Downed Raiders who moved could be targeted again by ARC machines after eight seconds, while staying still kept them protected. Players had to decide whether to wait for a revive or risk crawling toward safety.

That adds pressure when a fight goes wrong, but it does little to challenge a well-equipped squad that already knows how to handle an encounter. Balancing those fights becomes more complicated when solo players and groups of different sizes share the same world.

Embark could introduce tougher objectives that force teams to defend multiple positions or deal with several threats at once. Simply increasing enemy health would make encounters longer without necessarily demanding better teamwork.

However, the studio made clear that harder PvE was outside the scope of this test. Night Raid, Hidden Bunker and Frigate were also excluded, leaving questions about how those activities would work without hostile players.

A permanent PvE mode would need to offer enough challenge for experienced Raiders without making every encounter harder for players who simply want to explore and fight ARC machines at their own pace.

Keeping PvPvE available does not guarantee its matches remain unchanged. If cooperative Raiders mostly move into PvE, regular sessions could contain fewer people willing to negotiate or leave others alone. The choice would affect anyone who enjoys the uncertainty between a friendly meeting and a firefight.

The existing matchmaking already favors similar playstyles, so those changes would depend on which Raiders leave each pool and how frequently they return.

Embark warned that splitting matchmaking could also lengthen waits in quieter regions or outside busy hours. It has not published results establishing that this happened. A large total audience can still be unevenly distributed across times, regions and available activities.

There is also a possible benefit that a simple division of existing players misses. PvE could retain people who would otherwise stop playing, or bring back groups that no longer enjoyed regular raids.

Embark needs to distinguish those players from people merely changing queues. A temporary burst of experimentation cannot establish how either population would settle over several months.

Grøndal has outlined three possibilities: a relaxed side mode, a demanding challenge against AI, or a complete PvE experience. Each would ask something different of future updates. Occasional cooperative scavenging can reuse much of the existing game. A dedicated alternative would need enough encounters and progression to keep its own regular audience interested.

The studio has already struggled with the workload of supporting one game. Grøndal recently described developers becoming exhausted as maintenance, exploits and content deadlines repeatedly exceeded the team's capacity. Embark abandoned monthly major updates to give development more room for iteration. Major content releases now come twice a year, with smaller live updates continuing between them.

Sharing maps and enemies could keep a PvE option manageable, but both versions would still need testing. A mission built around squads competing for rewards may need different objectives when they cannot fight each other. A weapon powerful enough to make coordinated machine fights satisfying might become oppressive against individual Raiders, unless its effects can be tuned separately.

Promising separate streams of missions before understanding that workload would risk recreating the scheduling pressure Embark has already tried to escape. The scope of PvE needs to fit the team that will maintain it.

Embark has good reason to continue experimenting with PvE. The October test attracted considerable activity, and removing hostile players gives cooperative groups a different way to enjoy ARC Raiders. But a permanent mode would also affect loot progression, matchmaking and encounters designed around the possibility of betrayal.

Another limited test would help Embark understand whether players want occasional cooperative raids or an alternative they can play exclusively. That distinction is especially important for a studio already struggling to maintain its update schedule.

A dedicated PvE option could attract players who dislike PvP without taking the uncertainty away from regular raids. Embark should explore that opportunity, but committing to an entirely separate experience before establishing long-term demand risks stretching the team further and changing the game that made ARC Raiders successful.