Your opponents in ARC Raiders are supposedly determined by their gear. Now the developers are commenting on whether that is true.
What is behind the concern? A few days before the release of ARC Raiders, rumors emerged within the community of the shooter that the game would have a so-called gear-based matchmaking system in its full version.
This means that when you start a raid, you would only encounter other players during the round whose gear is approximately as strong as yours. You wouldn’t face any opponents with significantly better or worse gear.
Players express dissatisfaction and developers respond
Why does this bother the players? The idea of gear-based matchmaking was not well received by part of the community. On Reddit, a player called for completely removing gear-based matchmaking from the game, and over 900 users agreed with him by upvoting.
In various posts and comment sections on social networks, players explain that part of the appeal of extraction shooters is starting a round with poor gear and coming out with good, stolen gear. However, if all opposing players in the lobby have equally good gear, this experience is lost.
Now the developers of ARC Raiders have responded to the discussion and underlying rumors in a statement that was shared, among other platforms, on X.
What do the developers say? Embark Studios, the developers of ARC Raiders, explain that the focus of matchmaking at the release of the shooter should not be on the players’ gear:
“It is true that the team previously evaluated both loot/gear-based and other types of matchmaking principles, but currently the focus is on maintaining the separation between solo and squad players to keep these groups on a balanced playing field whenever possible.”
After the server slam of ARC Raiders, many players also discussed the difficulty of the extraction shooter. MeinMMO author Christos Tsogos also has an opinion on this and is convinced that the developers should not listen to the loud fans: ARC Raiders will be the next big extraction shooter, but only if the developers do not listen to their fans
