ARC Raiders is about to spend the next week becoming a little more like the game Embark Studios originally planned to make.

Beginning today, October 13, players will be able to toggle out of the game's usual PvPvE matchmaking and enter dedicated PvE sessions with no player-to-player damage. The limited test runs through October 20 and marks one of the biggest experiments Embark has made with the extraction shooter since launch.

What makes the change particularly unusual is where ARC Raiders started. Years before it became the high-tension extraction game players know today, Embark originally envisioned ARC Raiders as a raid-based PvE co-op game built around looting and fighting the ARC. The studio eventually abandoned that design and rebuilt the project around PvPvE, only for a substantial part of its eventual audience to start asking for the original idea back.

ARC Raiders' PvE Test Goes Live Today

The PvE matchmaking toggle becomes available October 13 at 11:00 CEST and remains active until the same time on October 20. Players can move between PvE and standard PvPvE matchmaking rather than committing a character or account exclusively to one side of the game.

Once inside a PvE session, other Raiders can no longer damage each other. Stun and fire throwables also lose their offensive effect against players, although physical tools such as barricades and ziplines continue to work normally.

Solos, duos and trios can all appear in the same PvE sessions, and Embark is deliberately lowering the overall value of loot to account for the reduced risk of extracting without hostile players hunting each other. ARC enemies are also slightly less forgiving when a Raider goes down. After an eight-second grace period, ARC can acquire a downed player again if they continue moving.

The mode is therefore not intended to turn the Rust Belt into a consequence-free farming environment. Embark is removing one source of danger while adjusting other parts of the experience to see whether PvE can work without undermining the economy or making the standard game irrelevant.

Players Are Pulling ARC Raiders Back Toward Its Original Idea

The decision is not simply the result of a loud group of players asking for an easier mode.

Embark says 37% of its population falls into what it describes as friendly co-op players, a group that has continued growing since launch. Another 27% move between different styles of play, while 34% primarily favor PvP and have remained relatively stable.

More revealing is what those groups actually told Embark. More than 70% of friendly players said they wanted fewer hostile encounters, but even 40% of the studio's PvP-focused players expressed the same preference. Across the surveyed player base, 51% said they were interested in a dedicated PvE option.

Those numbers help explain why Embark is willing to revisit a design direction it consciously left behind years ago.

ARC Raiders was originally conceived as a cooperative PvE game in which groups entered raids, collected loot and fought machines together. Development problems eventually led Embark to reset the project and build the extraction-focused PvPvE game that ultimately launched.

The irony is that the finished game's broader appeal appears to have created an audience for the version Embark decided not to make.

This Isn't Just ARC Raiders With PvP Switched Off

Embark is placing several restrictions around the test, including keeping some of ARC Raiders' most dangerous conditions exclusive to normal matchmaking.

Night Raids, Locked Gate, Hidden Bunker, Frigate and Redirection will not offer the PvE option. Those activities were designed around the uncertainty created by other players, and Embark appears unwilling to strip that element out simply to make every part of the game available in both queues.

PvE also comes with lower overall loot value, while standard PvPvE sessions retain the more lucrative risk-reward structure. Embark previously said PvPvE would receive slightly higher baseline loot values during the experiment because friendly players already tend to extract more successfully and carry more value out of a match.

The distinction matters because the biggest question surrounding PvE has never been whether players would enjoy shooting ARC without worrying about an ambush. It is whether that option can exist without becoming the safest and most efficient way to build a stash.

If players can acquire everything they need in low-risk PvE sessions before moving into PvPvE only when they feel like fighting, the rhythm and economy of the entire extraction game could change. Embark is clearly aware of that possibility.

Embark Is Testing Whether PvE Helps ARC Raiders or Splits It

The other risk is matchmaking.

A dedicated PvE queue does not create more players. It divides the existing population between additional matchmaking pools, potentially increasing wait times in quieter regions and changing the composition of standard PvPvE sessions.

There is also a less measurable question surrounding the people who remain behind.

One of ARC Raiders' defining characteristics is that encountering another Raider does not automatically mean a gunfight. Players can cooperate, ignore one another, betray each other or decide that whatever loot the other person is carrying is worth the risk. That uncertainty is responsible for many of the game's most memorable encounters.

If the players most interested in cooperation migrate heavily toward PvE, standard matchmaking could theoretically become more hostile simply because a larger share of the remaining population actively wants to fight.

Embark says it will monitor queue times and the quality of PvPvE sessions throughout the test, making this week as much an experiment on the original mode as it is on the new one.

The Community Is Already Treating PvE as a Reason to Come Back

The announcement has also exposed an audience that ARC Raiders may have been struggling to retain.

In community discussions ahead of today's launch, some players said they planned to reinstall specifically for the PvE test, while others described wanting a lower-pressure way to explore maps, hunt ARC or gather basic materials with friends before returning to regular PvPvE.

That is potentially more important for Embark than simply satisfying players who are already active every night. A PvE option could widen the game's appeal to people attracted to ARC Raiders' world, combat and cooperative systems but put off by extraction shooters' constant threat of losing gear to another player.

It could also give existing PvP players a different way to use the same game. Embark's own survey showing that a sizable portion of PvP-focused players want fewer hostile encounters suggests the divide is not as simple as PvE players on one side and PvP players on the other.

ARC Raiders Is Not Permanently Adding PvE Yet

For now, none of this guarantees ARC Raiders will keep dedicated PvE matchmaking.

Embark has repeatedly described the feature as a test rather than the launch of a permanent mode. When the experiment ends on October 20, the toggle will be removed and matchmaking will return to normal while the studio reviews player behavior, queue health, economic effects and feedback.

A future version could also look substantially different from the system players get today. Embark has explicitly left open the possibility that the test fails, saying the experiment should be taken as evidence that it is seriously considering PvE rather than a promise that dedicated PvE will remain.

That makes the next week unusually important for the direction of ARC Raiders.

Embark spent years moving away from a cooperative PvE concept because it believed the tension of PvPvE made ARC Raiders a better game. Its players have now pushed the studio far enough in the opposite direction that, beginning today, it is willing to find out whether both versions can exist at once.