ARC Raiders offers players many options to interact with others. You can confront other players or collaborate with them. However, the tests were not peaceful at all, which surprised the developers..
As an extraction shooter, ARC Raiders provides you with many ways to interact with the game. If you find strong loot, you must escape with it to keep it. You can find loot in the game world or take it from other players once you defeat them.
This even sparks regular discussions between PvE and PvP players. However, the peaceful approach of many players surprised the developers. In their tests, the approach looked quite different.
PvE and PvP are meant to have a balance
Why were the developers surprised? In an interview with PCGamer, Design Director Virgil Watkins from Embark Studios spoke about player behavior. He reveals that there was no collaboration during their tests. They were significantly more aggressive.
The developers were therefore surprised by the behavior of the players at release:
This kind of surprised us, in exactly how many people latch onto, and are having fun with, these [PvE] elements of the game. So it certainly encourages us to lean more toward giving opportunities to have friendly and fun interactions.
Virgil Watkins in an interview with PCGamer
However, they do not want to focus solely on PvE players but continue to ensure that the PvP aspect
is as fair as possible. They never want to force players to fight; that decision should be up to them.
The balance between PvE and PvP is challenging, but they also do not want to take sides. Players should experience their own stories based on their approaches in ARC Raiders. And that is not something we can ever force or engineer. And I’m glad we don’t try.
The dispute between PvE and PvP has likely existed in ARC Raiders since release. While some prefer to collaborate, others enjoy creating chaos. Which side do you belong to? Feel free to let us know in the comments. Other developers have also been surprised by the behavior of their community: Developers behind Fallout 76 are surprised at how friendly the community is: ‘It’s a post-apocalypse’
