ARC Raiders picked up the nickname "extraction (don't) shooter" for a reason — the PvP is half the identity. Embark Studios is about to find out what happens when they turn it off.
## The test From October 13 to 20, per GamingBolt, Embark is running a PvE-only matchmaking toggle across Solos, Duos, and Trios. Player-versus-player damage gets eliminated entirely — it's just squads against the AI ARCs. Some map conditions won't be available in the test: Night Raids, Hidden Bunker, Locked Gate, Frigate. To keep tension in the mode without another player as the threat, downed teammates who move will pull retargeting ARCs toward them. Loot value runs lower than standard matches too, so the traditional PvPvE mode still has a reason to exist alongside it.
## The numbers behind the decision Executive producer Aleksander Grøndal broke down the playerbase split: 37% prefer friendly co-op play and that number's been climbing, 27% like the mixed PvE/PvP format the game currently runs, and 34% are pure PvP. Roughly 70% of the cooperative-leaning players specifically asked for fewer hostile encounters. That's not a fringe complaint — it's more than a third of the entire base pushing in one direction.
## Embark isn't promising anything Grøndal's own words: "there is a real chance that the mode doesn't work out and Embark Studios scraps it entirely." That's a real hedge, not a soft-launch spin. A studio confident this becomes permanent doesn't frame it as an experiment that might get deleted after a week.
## What it means for the game's identity ARC Raiders started as a raid-based PvE co-op title before it evolved into the PvPvE hybrid that made it a hit. A PvE-only mode isn't a new direction, in that light — it's closer to the game returning to where it started, for the third of the base that never wanted the PvP layer in the first place. Whether that fractures the community or just gives everybody the version they actually want depends entirely on how October 13 through 20 goes.
## Sources - GamingBolt, Sept. 28, 2026 — ARC Raiders is Testing a PvE Mode From October 13th to October 20th