Embark says adding ARC Raiders PvE is technically easy, but the harder problem is protecting the extraction shooter’s core emotional loop built on risk, trust, and player encounters.
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Store links: ARC Raiders on Steam
Embark can add PvE, but the real fight is over tension
Embark Studios CEO Patrick Söderlund says ARC Raiders PvE would not be hard to add from a technical standpoint. The problem, according to his comments to The Game Business, is whether a permanent PvE option would interfere with the extraction shooter’s core emotional loop.
“We could just frankly add PvE,” Söderlund said in the interview, as quoted by GamingBolt and syndicated reporting from GamesRadar and Yahoo. “It’s not a difficult thing for us to do, but we didn’t want to obstruct or fiddle too much with the core loop of the game. The PvP aspect of a PvPvE game does add, we believe, adequate tension.”
That is the cleanest version of the ARC Raiders PvE debate. Embark is not presenting PvE as a production impossibility. It is treating PvE as a design risk. ARC Raiders is an extraction shooter where the danger is not only the machines, the loot economy, or the map route back to safety. The danger is the unknown intent of another raider in your line of sight.
For players asking for ARC Raiders PvE because they want the world, weapons, and progression without being dropped by another squad, Söderlund’s comments are encouraging and limiting at the same time. Embark has tested the idea and is no longer dismissing it. But the studio is also saying the PvP layer is part of the emotional contract of the game, not an optional garnish it can remove without consequences.
The core emotional loop is trust, fear, and bad decisions
Söderlund framed ARC Raiders around emotion rather than a mode checklist. “When you’re building a game, what you’re trying to do is to evoke emotion in players,” he told The Game Business, according to GamingBolt. He said ARC Raiders touches several emotions, including joy and fear, and argued that removing “one substantial component” would fiddle with the “core emotional loop.”
That phrase matters because it explains why Embark is moving cautiously. In a PvPvE extraction game, the most memorable moments often happen between the rules. A player waves and leaves. A stranger helps clear pressure, then vanishes. A duo pretends to disengage, circles back, and deletes you at the worst possible time. The gunfight is only half the event. The mind game before the trigger pull is the hook.
GamingBolt points to that same uneasy player-to-player tension as one of the elements ARC Raiders has been praised for. Sometimes another raider lets you live. Sometimes they shoot you in the back. That uncertainty changes how players move through a map. It changes whether you sprint across open ground, whether you loot one more room, whether you take a loud fight, and whether you trust proximity behavior that looks friendly for three seconds.
From a shooter pacing perspective, that is the part Embark is trying to protect. AI can pressure a route. AI can drain ammo. AI can make extraction harder. But AI does not create the same read-and-counter-read loop as another human who wants your kit and may be pretending they do not. A permanent ARC Raiders PvE mode could still be fun, and Söderlund now says Embark has learned that it can be fun. The open question is whether it can exist without flattening the instincts the live game has trained into its players.
The PvE test gave Embark a signal it cannot ignore
The studio’s caution is running into a loud demand signal. Yahoo’s report, drawing from The Game Business interview, says ARC Raiders recently ran a limited-time PvE-only test where players could opt into rounds without the risk of another raider killing them. GamesRadar and Yahoo both report that Embark has not announced a permanent PvE mode, so that remains unconfirmed.
What is confirmed from the interview coverage is that the test was meaningful. Executive producer Aleksander Grøndal said, according to Yahoo, that almost 50% of games played during the test were PvE. That is a huge slice for an experimental mode in a game whose identity is built around PvPvE extraction pressure.
Yahoo’s report describes reception as mixed but overall positive, while also noting that some players changed their minds about whether PvE was fun and that others “absolutely loved it,” according to Grøndal. Söderlund’s tone has shifted too. After explaining Embark’s original fear around damaging the emotional loop, he said the studio has “now since tried it and realised that it’s fine,” as quoted by GamingBolt. Yahoo’s version of the quote adds the line, “Why not have it? You know, maybe people can choose what they like.”
That last phrase is the doorway, but it is not a roadmap. Embark has not said a permanent ARC Raiders PvE mode is coming. It has said the camp asking for it is too large to ignore. Söderlund said, according to Yahoo, that the goal is to do a good enough job catering to different player types “without watering down the overall experience.” That is the balancing act now: serve the PvE audience without turning the PvPvE queue into the punishment queue.
Loot balance is where a peaceful mode gets messy
The hardest design work is not flipping off player damage. It is rebuilding the incentives around risk. GamingBolt reports that the recent PvE test lowered loot quantity, offsetting the reduced danger of removing hostile players. That is the first sign of how Embark may be thinking about balance if ARC Raiders PvE returns.
Extraction shooters live on asymmetry between danger and reward. If a PvE queue gives the same route safety, the same loot output, and the same progression value as PvPvE, a large portion of the player base will take the safer lane whenever efficiency matters. If the rewards are too heavily cut, PvE becomes a sightseeing mode that many players will try once and abandon. The sweet spot is narrow.
Yahoo’s report points to the broader complications beyond the apparently simple technical implementation: economy, population, servers, event design, and related live-service systems. That is exactly where the real costs sit. Separate modes divide player behavior. Different reward tables create arguments about fairness. PvE-safe progression can reduce the amount of loot moving through contested spaces. PvPvE lobbies can feel more predatory if the least aggressive players migrate away.
For competitive-minded players who enjoy ARC Raiders because every extract has stakes, the concern is not that someone else gets a calmer option. The concern is that the shared ecosystem loses friction. If friendly, cautious, and casual raiders disappear into PvE, the PvPvE side can become denser with hunters. That may sound good to pure PvP players for a week, but extraction games need a mix of motives to stay unpredictable. Lobbies full of only killers are usually less interesting than lobbies where nobody is sure what the next person wants.
Success forced Embark to build faster than planned
The PvE debate is happening against a bigger live-service pressure story. In The Game Business interview, Söderlund and Grøndal described ARC Raiders as a breakout success that quickly outgrew Embark’s initial content plans. The Game Business reports that ARC Raiders sold 16 million copies in a little over six months and that publisher Nexon had never seen a launch like it.
Söderlund said preorder numbers climbed in ways that made the studio double-check whether the data was accurate. Grøndal said the game “exploded” beyond what he expected. Söderlund also told The Game Business that ARC Raiders reached around 80% day-one retention, which created massive demand for more content. His view was that $40 for around 100 hours of play was a reasonable return, but he also acknowledged that players wanted more ARC Raiders once they had burned through what the launch build offered.
That context changes the PvE conversation. This is not a quiet game looking for a desperate reinvention. It is a successful extraction shooter trying to keep several audiences fed without losing the identity that made it work. Embark front-loaded a lot into launch season, Grøndal told The Game Business, then had to rethink roadmaps and monthly updates as 2026 progressed.
GamingBolt also notes that ARC Raiders’ Steam numbers recently peaked at nearly 73,000 concurrent players, citing SteamDB, and says that is stronger than months before the Frozen Trail update. GamingBolt reports that Frozen Trail added content including a new map, weapons, gear, and outpost decorating. That suggests Embark is still capable of pulling players back with traditional content drops, even as PvE remains one of the loudest mode-level requests.
For PvPvE players, the best outcome is choice with guardrails
If you like ARC Raiders for tension, risk, and emergent encounters, Söderlund’s comments should read less like a surrender to PvE and more like a warning that Embark understands the cost of a blunt solution. The studio’s stated fear is that removing PvP removes a major emotional input. Its newer position is that the PvE audience is real and the test showed enough promise to keep exploring.
The clean version of the future would let players choose without letting either side cannibalize the other. That likely means separate reward tuning, clear mode labeling, and event designs that do not make one queue feel like the only efficient place to play. The sources do not confirm any of those specifics as upcoming features. They are the obvious pressure points created by Embark’s own comments about integrity, population, and the overall experience.
Players waiting specifically for ARC Raiders PvE should not treat a permanent mode as announced. Embark has tested PvE, senior leadership has said it is technically easy to add, and the studio has acknowledged demand. That is the confirmed state. Timing, final format, reward structure, and permanence remain unannounced in the provided reporting.
Players who prefer the current extraction loop should watch the next ARC Raiders update conversation for one thing above all: whether Embark protects uncertainty. The best ARC Raiders stories come from not knowing if the shape moving across the street is a fight, a truce, a bait play, or a mistake you will regret. PvE can have a place if Embark keeps that core intact where it belongs. If it flattens the whole game into predictable lanes, the mode everyone asked for could make the main event less volatile, and less sharp.