ARC Raiders launched as a third‑person PvPvE extraction shooter, but it did not start life that way. Early versions were built as a co‑op PvE looter‑shooter before the team pivoted to the current extraction format. That history sits at the center of an ongoing argument: should a game that now leans so hard into high‑stress, player‑driven tension add a way to turn other raiders off?
Why so many players want a PvE mode
The push for a PvE option comes from several concrete pain points rather than a vague dislike of competition.
| Main reason | How players describe it | What they want instead |
|---|---|---|
| Mental fatigue from constant PvP | “Sweaty extraction formula”, “too stressful after work”, “I play a few raids then swap games.” | A lower‑stress playlist to keep playing ARC Raiders without always sweating every fight. |
| Extraction griefing and camping | “Shot in the back at extract”, “rats who did nothing kill me after I kill the queen.” | Spaces where the main threat is ARC machines, not opportunistic raiders farming extractions. |
| Wanting to enjoy worldbuilding | “The world is way too interesting to be stuck behind an extraction loop.” | Campaign‑style or raid‑style PvE where the lore, bosses and atmosphere take center stage. |
| Age and time constraints | “I’m 40+ with a job”, “my reactions are gone”, “I get one hour a night.” | Co‑op against AI where skill and time gaps versus full‑time sweats hurt less. |
| Friends refusing to buy the game | Players report groups of friends skipping ARC Raiders solely because of forced PvP. | A mode that makes the game viable for co‑op groups who currently avoid extraction shooters. |
There is also a simple tonal argument: the game casts every player as an ARC Raider fighting a machine invasion for the survival of underground settlements. Many people find it jarring that this fiction translates into serial elevator camping, back‑stabbing during boss fights, and “shoot on sight or die” social norms.
On top of that sits a macro trend. In almost every discussion, players point at a familiar life cycle: extraction games launch with a friendly “honeymoon phase”, then gradually harden into meta‑driven, gear‑stacked, KoS lobbies where casual and mid‑core players quietly drop out. Those players want ARC Raiders to carry a built‑in off‑ramp: when the main loop becomes too punishing, they can move sideways into high‑quality co‑op instead of uninstalling.
The arguments against adding full PvE
The resistance to a dedicated PvE mode isn’t just knee‑jerk gatekeeping. It rests on a few specific design and business concerns.
| Concern | What opponents expect to happen |
|---|---|
| Split playerbase | Non‑aggressive players migrate to PvE, leaving PvPvE lobbies filled almost entirely with hardcore PvP squads. |
| Loss of “unknown human factor” | With fewer varied playstyles mixing together, encounters become more predictable and one‑dimensional KoS fights. |
| Weaker replay loop in pure PvE | The current ARC AI and map objectives, on their own, do not create enough risk or variety to sustain hundreds of hours. |
| Content and balance overhead | A small studio would need to tune loot, difficulty, progression and economy separately for PvE and PvPvE. |
| Economic abuse | Players could farm rare loot safely in PvE, then dominate PvPvE with risk‑free gear unless progression is fully walled off. |
Players defending the current design often describe ARC Raiders as “fundamentally a PvPvE extraction shooter”. In that view, the machines are deliberately tuned as a medium‑level threat: dangerous when you are careless, or when they collide with a firefight, but not meant to anchor an entire mode on their own. The tension comes from managing limited resources while never quite knowing whether the raider you just waved at is about to help you or betray you.
There is also a belief that adding a safe mode erodes the value of loot. If you can achieve the same progression by grinding predictable ARC encounters with no chance of losing your kit to a human, then exotic weapons and armor stop feeling earned; they become a function of time invested.
What the game’s DNA says about PvE
Both sides of the debate are reacting to the same underlying fact: ARC Raiders carries clear traces of its PvE origins even though it now plays as an extraction shooter.
- The world is built as a coherent, explorable landscape rather than a tight arena. Players talk about “stealthing from the bots” and wandering with no gear just to soak in the atmosphere.
- ARC enemies are the headline threat in the lore. Community events and roadmap teases focus on new ARC types, boss‑scale threats like Bastion and Queens, and larger surface assaults.
- Many early testers describe the PvP layer as something that feels “added on” late, with third‑person sightlines and map geometry that favour camping more than clean duels.
That mix is why PvE advocates see an opportunity. They are not asking to remove the current PvPvE loop. They argue that ARC Raiders already has most of what a strong co‑op mode would need: varied robots, sprawling spaces, and a fiction about raiders working together against an overwhelming machine force. In their view, the missing piece is structure—missions, raids, or events tuned specifically for squads that want ARC fights to be the main course rather than a backdrop to human ambushes.
Design challenges a PvE mode must solve
Dropping players into the existing maps with friendly‑fire disabled would not suddenly produce a satisfying PvE game. The current extraction formula leans on a few things that would have to be rebuilt for a dedicated co‑op playlist.
- A repeatable progression loop. In PvPvE, the loop is simple: loot, survive, sell, upgrade, and push into more dangerous areas where you risk losing everything. PvE would need its own clear arc: tougher ARC gauntlets, raid‑style bosses with multi‑phase mechanics, or long‑form objectives that change how runs feel.
- Real danger from ARCs alone. Many high‑skill players already trivialize most ARC types, only respecting outliers like Rocketeers, Bombardiers or Queens. PvE needs those enemies to combine in ways that threaten even coordinated squads: coordinated rushes, area denial, and attrition pressure that can wipe a team if they misplay.
- Economy separation or heavy constraints. If PvE shares progression with PvPvE, developers have to cap what you can earn in the safe mode, or they risk turning the extraction side into a sideshow for players who farmed everything in co‑op.
- Workload on a small team. Maintaining balance and fresh content for one live mode is hard. Maintaining two that share assets but not tuning quickly snowballs into twice the testing and twice the design decisions.
This is why some players propose middle‑ground options: limited‑time PvE events with restricted rewards instead of a full second ladder, or “dungeon” style activities that plug into the existing economy without becoming an easier parallel track.
Compromises players keep circling back to
In community discussions, three compromise patterns show up repeatedly.
1. High‑intensity PvE events inside the live world
One recurring idea is a rotating event where one map flips into an ARC‑only scenario for a short window—essentially a cease‑fire against humans, with machine spawns and aggression cranked up. Variants of that proposal include:
- A daily or weekly “ARC onslaught” where Bastions, Rocketeers and Queens are guaranteed to spawn in numbers.
- Defence events around hubs like Speranza, turning the space into a multi‑wave co‑op holdout instead of a normal raid.
- Opt‑in “ARC compound” assaults you unlock through regular raids, functioning like dungeons: resource‑intensive, high‑risk, and capped at a few runs per day.
Supporters of this route see it as a way to give PvE‑leaning players a home without permanently fragmenting lobbies. Detractors tend to worry less about the events themselves and more about the development time required to make them deep enough to matter.
2. Separate progression and characters for PvE
Another common suggestion is a strict wall between modes:
- PvE characters with their own stash, workbenches and unlocks.
- PvPvE characters that never benefit from items or currency earned in PvE.
That approach directly addresses the fear of “free” gear ruining extraction balance. It also acknowledges that players looking for chill co‑op are willing to play under harsher constraints—slower progression, lower loot tiers, or rewards focused on cosmetics rather than raw power—if it means avoiding human ambushes entirely.
The trade‑off is obvious: parallel ladders double the progression systems to design and maintain. It also raises a hard question for a studio: which side gets priority when tuning weapons, ARC behaviours, or loot tables?
3. Stronger incentives and boundaries inside PvPvE
Some players don’t ask for a distinct PvE playlist at all. They want tools inside the current mode that make cooperation viable and extraction griefing less rewarding. Common ideas include:
- Small “protected rings” around extraction elevators where killing another raider delays or blocks the extraction for everyone, rather than showering the camper in XP.
- Contracts and dailies that pay out for killing large ARCs or extracting with strangers, not for stacking raider kills.
- Penalties for “dishonourable” kills, such as downing unarmed raiders or attacking someone who recently emoted “don’t shoot”.
These tweaks wouldn’t create a true PvE experience, but they could stretch out the honeymoon period where spontaneous alliances and co‑op boss hunts feel possible. The underlying PvP risk would stay intact; the social cost of relentless KoS play would rise.
What all of this means if you are choosing the game
ARC Raiders, as it stands, is built on the friction between raiders and ARCs sharing the same space. Every run asks you to juggle three things at once: the machines, the loot, and the possibility that the human you just met will turn on you for a handful of bolts.
If that tension is the draw, the current design already delivers it. If you are mainly interested in a relaxed co‑op shooter, or if you are tired of extraction griefing in general, ARC Raiders in its present form may not be a comfortable fit. The strongest throughline in community feedback is simple: many players like the feel of the guns, the world, and the robots, but only on days when they have the energy for the human wildcard. When they do not, they either log off or go to PvE‑only games.
Whether that gap will be filled with full PvE, limited events, or only modest social tweaks depends on how the studio weighs long‑term retention against the purity of its extraction formula. For now, the safest assumption is that the core identity remains PvPvE—and any future PvE flavour will have to coexist with that, not replace it.
