Only 30% of Arc Raiders players actively focus on PvP, while another 30% focus on PvE and 40% sit somewhere between the two, according to GamesRadar’s Apr. 15 report on comments from Embark Studios executive producer Aleksander Grøndal. The same report says more than 95% of players use proximity chat. The r/gamernews post had 547 points and 95 comments at crawl time, well above the subreddit’s 50-point floor.

Player Behavior in an Extraction Shooter

GamesRadar reports that Grøndal said the volume of friendly players surprised Embark. A criminologist also contacted the studio because player interactions in Arc Raiders raised questions normally studied in social behavior rather than patch notes. The article adds achievement context: roughly one-fifth of Steam players have not earned the raider knockout achievement, and only 51.5% have the achievement for 10 KOs.

The data does not mean Arc Raiders has stopped being a PvPvE extraction game. Risk, loss, pressure, and the possibility of hostile players still define the loop. What the numbers show is that combat-first play is only one major behavior pattern. Looting, PvE, negotiation, short-term cooperation, and voice-led trust tests are also part of the live game.

Community Read

The r/gamernews thread leaned into the PvE extraction question. Several top comments compared the finding with Dune: Awakening’s PvE/PvP split, or said they like the extraction loop but are pushed away by constant PvP. Others framed non-PvP play as a valid preference rather than a failure to engage with the genre.

For designers, the useful number may be the 95% proximity-chat usage. Arc Raiders’ social layer is not decorative; it appears to be one of the systems that lets players decide whether an encounter becomes a fight, a trade, a warning, or a temporary alliance. Embark’s next problem is balancing friendly play, PvE pressure, anti-griefing, and the danger that gives extraction games their stakes.

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Arc Raiders Data: 30% Focus on PvP, More Than 95% Use Proximity Chat