Arc Raiders' PvE mode goes live today: 'This is an opportunity to team up in the fight against the machines'

Arc Raiders skins: Key art showing three characters. The one on the left is wearing a blue pincho and holding a pistol ready at their hip. The middle figure is wearing a brown poncho and cowboy hat, facing the camera with a pistol across their chest. On the right is another character in a brown poncho and hat but facing away.

(Image credit: Embark)

If you boil it down, there are only two kinds of Arc Raiders players: those who like helping one another in the face of certain death and huge arcs, and those who prefer PvP. It seems to be quite a divisive choice within the community, but now there'll be a mode specifically for those who'd rather fight the arcs instead of each other.

Shared Watch is a new annual holiday event "that reminds us of the true enemy, by celebrating those that look out for their fellow raiders," an official blog post says. "Tolerate, team-up, or take out some Arc—it's all in the spirit of the Shared Watch."

This will be Arc Raiders' first specifically PvE mode. Before this, there were the blessed PvE lobbies, which you could only get into if you sacrificed yourself in PvP lobbies, refusing to shoot at anyone, even if they were spraying you with bullets. But it wasn't a failsafe, and Embark hasn't given us enough information about aggression-based matchmaking to know how it works for sure.

Embark has actually said in the past that Arc Raiders wasn't built with PvP in mind, that gunning down fellow raiders doesn't fit in with the ethos of the game. But you can't restrict how people play in an extraction shooter, especially if killing other players is a lucrative pastime.

This is how Shared Watch differentiates itself from the regular mode; there's no incentive to kill other raiders. "Players will earn merits from destroying, assisting and damaging ARC and earn rewards," the post says. "No merits will be earned from PvP encounters. Bring a friend or bring a stranger, but above all, bring enough ammo to make sure the machines notice you first."

My only worry is that while this mode doesn't encourage PvP, it also doesn't completely ban it. Meaning someone could still kill other players, they'd just be doing it for the love of the game, as they wouldn't get anything else from it. So enjoy the Shared Watch raiders, just keep your eyes peeled for suspicious behaviour.

Elie is a news writer with an unhealthy love of horror games—even though their greatest fear is being chased. When they're not screaming or hiding, there's a good chance you'll find them testing their metal in metroidvanias or just admiring their Pokemon TCG collection. Elie has previously worked at TechRadar Gaming as a staff writer and studied at JOMEC in International Journalism and Documentaries – spending their free time filming short docs about Smash Bros. or any indie game that crossed their path.

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