Testers told Embark 'they didn't like the PvP'

Arc Raiders sits in the awkward position of being a popular PvPvE game while some players strongly dislike the PvP element, and developer Embark Studios has encountered that reaction before.

Production director Caio Braga said during a Game Developer Conference 2026 panel that PvP has been controversial from the moment it was conceived. Braga added that Embark undertook "a big reset" during development and introduced PvP.

He recalled that "the very first feedback was, players didn't like it. They didn't like the PvP. And there was substantial negative PvP sentiment." Developers asked, "Should we even have done this? Should we have added PvP to this?" Embark's "data people" concluded it wasn't PvP itself that was the core issue — though some players might disagree — but a matter of comfort.

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