ARC Raiders is currently the hit on Steam, PS5, and Xbox. The extraction shooter attracts hundreds of thousands of players just on the PC platform. However, not all of them are teammates you would like to have in a match. One player has the perfect, albeit villainous solution at hand.
What’s going on with matchmaking?
- On October 30, ARC Raiders was released and has already attracted over 200,000 players on Steam alone. That’s enough for the Top 5 on the platform. The 24-hour peak over the weekend is even higher with 328,000 (according to SteamDB, as of November 2, 2025).
- On Steam, the game is rated “very positive”, however, there was already criticism about the planned matchmaking: it was supposed to take your gear into account.
- Currently, however, the focus is on solo and squad balancing, according to the developers, to improve the experience. One player, at least, did not notice much of this in one round.
How bad the mates were: On Reddit, the user yezplz explains that he was thrown into battle solo with a duo. His two mates spoke no English at all, only Spanish, and made an effort to communicate with him.
yezplz states that he at least wanted to somehow communicate through pings and emotes. However, his companions became increasingly aggressive: they looted areas before he arrived, so he wouldn’t get anything. One even supposedly grabbed a probe that he had actually uncovered.
To top it all off, someone in voice chat at some point said: “puta madre [player name]” – which translates to: wanker or son of a whore. That’s when yezplz lost his temper and left, but not without a wicked plan.
“This should become an accepted strategy”
The user writes that he ran so far away from his team that the voice chat can no longer reach the other two, in order to then call for help. Another team noticed this call.
After he was not immediately shot down, yezplz explains how bad his mates are and offered to lead the other team to them to loot. As a team member, he could not eliminate his mates himself, but could hire other players for that. In short: the other team eliminated the two unfriendly teammates and went home with a lot of gear.
yezplz says that this is “the most evil thing” he has done in the game so far. In the thread itself, one of the “hitmen” chimes in and writes that it was his pleasure and that yezplz’s service was excellent. yezplz receives little criticism; many see his reaction as justified.
Other users share their experiences with ARC Raiders. Although many apparently take a more pacifistic approach, never starting a fight and simply wanting to loot, the game gradually brings out other sides of them.
In a comment, it says that after bleeding out, the prompt appeared: “Maybe it’s time for your villain arc?” Another user explains that those who are too bad at PvP should practice on easy targets: just come after a firefight and clean up.
The friendly, PvP-free game can only work for so long, according to further discussions – still, it is nice that many players in ARC Raiders are open to collaborate across squads, unlike in Hunt or Escape from Tarkov. If you want to enhance your survival chances, you can find 8 beginner tips for ARC Raiders.
