PvP is the reason Arc Raiders works – love it or hate it, even Embark's design lead says it "adds the spice"

When I listened to members of Embark Studios explain pre-launch why Arc Raiders was pivoting away from its original vision of pure PvE and free-to-play monetization, it never once registered as a game for me – someone who avoids PvP and has never played an extraction shooter. Cut to today and Arc Raiders is my most-played game of the past few months. Steam tells me I'm creeping up on 200 hours, and while I don't play as ravenously as I did over the holiday break, I can't resist a few raids each day. "Is this how smoking feels?" I asked my friends in Discord. Now I realize just how right Embark was: the only reason I'm logging in at all is PvP.

It's not that I'm playing exclusively to seek out and shoot other players. I think this is actually a boring way to play because you stop looking at the world and start looking for tiny little dudes. I am definitely on the more aggressive side of the raider spectrum, often dragging my duo and trio partners into firefights, but I don't automatically shoot on sight. My approach to PvP is an opportunistic one. If I'm not overly attached to the stuff in my inventory, and I catch someone unaware, I'll usually take the shot.

Lately I've come to embrace helping more raiders – sharing hatch keys, teaming up on large Arc, or donating rare blueprints I have duplicates of. It can be more fun to take a chance on people in the hopes of writing a story that's longer than, "I saw a guy, so I shot him." But, a confession: I've also developed a taste for the blood of Queen and Matriarch hunters, which is the only case – I swear, your honor – where I will specifically go in looking to cause trouble.

PvP is the defining element of the sandbox that Embark has created. It colors every aspect of the game. It's the threat that hangs in the air no matter where you are or how safe you'd otherwise feel. It's the reason each raid feels dynamic and unpredictable. Every time I ready up, I'm rolling the dice on luck and human behavior – two of the most compelling variables for any multiplayer game. And even if you don't like PvP, even if you hate it and it frustrates you and you do everything in your power to avoid it, I think your experience is still way better because the possibility of PvP exists.

You've got a friend in me

If you're happiest in raids where everyone is friendly – dancing at extract, reviving strangers, sharing quest-related resources – you might benefit from PvP the most out of anyone. All of those moments feel more special, and are special, because people could instead fill you with more bullets than a Torrente magazine. It's the other option.

Any of the dozen raiders forming a conga line in a solo lobby could, at any moment, open fire (and probably get lit up like a Christmas tree by the other 11 people). The stranger you met in the Buried City hospital who dropped you a laboratory reagent could so easily put a shotgun to your head when you go to pick it up. The good samaritan who stabilized you with bandages all the way to Stella Montis extract could effortlessly plunder your entire inventory. Your impromptu Bastion-killing buddy who swears he's "friendly" and spammed his flashlight as a sign of trust could put a bullet in your head as soon as you go to loot your hard-earned cores.

If anything, killing other players for their loot is demonstrably more rewarding economically. But many players – more than Embark ever expected – still choose to be nice. Cooperating is more fun because competing is an option. Peace matters because violence is on the table.

I've told my raiding buddies that PvE is the car and PvP is the engine. The Arc, the environments, the gunplay, the stealth and survival game juice – that's the core of Arc Raiders. That's what the game is about. But PvP makes it work; it is transformative. And like with cars and engines, if you lose either, you ain't getting very far.

While discussing the balance of PvE and PvP with Arc Raiders design lead Virgil Watkins, I related my car analogy. I wanted to share his assessment here, because as someone who avoided and then later embraced PvP, I found it very interesting.

"That's a good way to put it, because it is what adds the spice," Watkins tells me. "As players get more sophisticated and learn the game better – and are better off with their gear and stuff – the threat of PvE goes down quite a lot. We see players who can very capably take down the hardest drones. You need that element. And a lot of the drones, the way the encounters are set up and the way they're spawned is in a way that invites the possibility of PvP. Do I make noise? Do I draw attention to this situation? Do I evade this drone? And when you remove the factor of other players capitalizing on that situation or coming to help, that kind of gets rid of some of the ambiguity that we like in play."

On the subject of matchmaking trends corralling friendly players together, Watkins ponders the risks of imagined PvE-only environments: "We want both [PvP and PvE] elements present. If it is purely PvE, the tension, risk, and danger factor of PvP being there goes away, and the game's not balanced, not built around that, right? That's part of the reason we moved away from it being a PvE game a while ago. And it's not to say that we can't eventually shape that better, but as the game stands today, it's a bit of a risk for us to directly push that."

"We can track who shoots first": Arc Raiders design lead says aggression-based matchmaking is "a bit of a misnomer," and "we don't do anything like skill-based matchmaking or gear-based."