Embark Studios is taking a new approach to the extraction shooter genre by introducing a matchmaking system for ARC Raiders that tracks and responds to player behavior. During a recent hands-on session with GamesBeat, Embark Studios CEO Patrick Söderlund confirmed that the game will try to group players based on their skill and, more importantly, their tendency for combat.
This “aggression-based” matchmaking aims to address one of the most divisive aspects of the genre: the ongoing tension between cooperative PvE play and hostile PvP encounters. According to Söderlund, the system looks at how often a player engages in conflict with others compared to focusing on the environment and objectives. Players who prefer peaceful looting and teamwork will likely find themselves teammates with others who share their mindset. This could help lessen the “kill-on-sight” mentality prevalent in games like Escape from Tarkov or Rust.
While the game will still offer standard queue options for solos, duos, and trios, this behavioral layer adds a useful filter to the backend. Söderlund pointed out that the system isn’t a “full science,” suggesting that rogue players won’t be completely eliminated. Instead, the aim is to adjust the frequency of high-stakes player encounters to match individual playstyles. This offers a compromise for those who find traditional extraction shooters too harsh, while still keeping the threat of human opponents relevant.
The introduction of this system marks a major shift for ARC Raiders, which started as a purely cooperative title before being transformed into a PvPvE experience. By using behavioral data, Embark Studios seeks to tackle the “toxicity” issue at its root—not by banning aggressive players, but by separating them. If this approach works, it could establish a new standard for how developers manage player interactions in high-stakes online environments. However, its success will ultimately depend on how the community tries to exploit the system once it is released.
