Arc Raiders finds itself in the tricky position of being a PvPvE game—popular overall, but with a vocal portion of the player base disliking PvP. Developer Embark Studios has seen this kind of controversy before.
PvP’s rocky start
During a Game Developers Conference 2026 panel attended by GamesRadar+, production director Caio Braga explained that PvP had been added during a “big reset” in development.
“The very first feedback was, players didn’t like it. They didn’t like the PvP. And there was substantial negative PvP sentiment.”
The team even questioned themselves: “Should we even have done this? Should we have added PvP to this?”
Data to the rescue
Braga credits Embark’s analytics team for clarifying the issue. It wasn’t that PvP was inherently bad—it was a matter of player comfort and familiarity. Adjustments based on that insight helped PvP integrate more smoothly into the overall PvPvE experience, though it remains a divisive feature for some. 
