Arc Raiders faced substantial negative PvP sentiment during testing

After Embark Studios' playtest battles and a slew of competing plans, the team pivoted Arc Raiders away from its PvE boss-killing roots and added PvP to spice things up. That change helped shape how the game became the PvPvE extraction shooter it is today.

In a GDC talk, production director Caio Braga said the studio nearly walked the decision back. Once Embark moved away from scattershot ideas for a PvE boss rush, it ran a bunch of "validation" tests—effectively playtest surveys—to gauge progress.

Those validation tests revealed substantial negative PvP sentiment, briefly causing the team to second-guess the pivot. They later realised the reaction was really frustration with weapons and matchmaking, and that development was still far from simple.

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