Arc Raiders developer Embark Studios is bowing to the pacifists and trialing a PvE mode in their extraction shooter. If you play between October 13th and 20th, you’ll be able to flick a toggle that means you load either into the traditional world of Arc Raiders, where human players vie for the valuable scraps left behind in a ruined world watched over by killer robots, or a slightly safer version where the machines are still deadly but the humans can’t hurt you.
“We’re seeing a large and growing group of Raiders who come to the Rust Belt for the co-op and the ARC, not fighting with other Raiders,” Embark say in the post announcing the trial. “That group has become a core part of our community, so it’s important we learn how to support them properly rather than leave them working around the game.”
To back this up, the studio share some data they’ve collected, showing that there are now more players that play only friendly co-op and never attack other humans than the merciless pure PvP bunch. Apparently the PvP group has remained at a stable 34% since the game’s launch, but the number of mixed players, who spend most their time being affable members of the post-apocalypse society but occasionally dabble in wanton homicide, has shrunk, with most opting to become full-time peaceniks.
I’m not sure how I feel about this. I don’t hurt other people and I think most don’t but I feel like that what makes other people feel nice, knowing they could hurt you but choose not to. If I’m in trouble I think most people are more likely to help than hurt me. A little bit of danger makes it exciting.
This happened with Ultima Inline years ago, they made two servers, one for people who wanted PvP and one for those who don’t, and you could switch between them relatively freely. The PvP side ended up being a total death trap where you would get PKed instantly while the other side felt too safe.
I’m also unsure that a PvE mode will be good for the game. I know there are some people who don’t want anything to do with PvP, but I think what the majority are tired of when it comes to PvP is deception. Players acting friendly but then killing you when you least expect it.
I think what the Chinese dev team is doing might be a better fix. That or a faction system, so you can immediately see if another player will be hostile