ARC Raiders has been praised for many things since its launch, but its standout quality is, without a doubt, its immersion. It’s almost impossible to forget one’s first round in ARC Raiders (even if it doesn’t end well), simply because it has a way of almost effortlessly submerging players in its world. The sights, the sounds, even the discomfort—they all play a role in making it the unforgettable ride that it is. However, over time, that defining quality has proven to be one of ARC Raiders‘ most divisive, not because players can’t agree on its value, but because they can’t agree on how it is best experienced.
For some players, ARC Raiders is fine the way it is as a PvPvE game, but others would prefer if it did away with PvP entirely. A PvE-only mode has been one of the extraction shooter’s most commonly requested features since launch, and it’s difficult not to see the game’s immersion as playing a major part in that. If ARC Raiders wasn’t such an immersive experience, the cry for a PvE-only mode wouldn’t be as loud as it is, and it might not even exist at all.
ARC Raiders’ Best Feature Is Its Immersion
Even before anything has happened during a round in ARC Raiders, it’s easy to become lost in its world. Upon heading into the Dam Battlegrounds for the first time, players are greeted by a silence that is almost deafening and the subsequent tension that comes as a direct result of that silence. There’s no telling when shots might ring out, or when a nearby Wasp might chirp at the sight of a Raider. It isn’t long before mysterious explosions sound off in the distance, and ARCs that are five and ten times larger than a human being can be heard stomping around their patrol routes. All of this plays into ARC Raiders‘ immersion.
Even ahead of its launch, ARC Raiders was already being acknowledged as a deeply immersive experience by those who participated in various tests of the game. A deep-dive analysis shared on Reddit by kimblarsen showed why ARC Raiders‘ immersion stands out so much in comparison to other shooters. The analysis, which was based on 130 community survey responses from Tech Test 2, showed players pointed to the game’s “sound and world design, weather, and responsive AI” as some of the main reasons the world feels “alive, dangerous, and unforgettable.” Of course, with the survey being done ahead of ARC Raiders‘ release, many comments in the thread expressed doubt that the game could actually be as immersive as it sounds.
However, once the extraction shooter launched, players began to notice that it was, in fact, one of the more immersive games out there. Posts like this one from Reddit user Evo_8 discuss how ARC Raiders‘ machines feel like real robots, and that’s a large part of what makes them so frightening. Embark Studios even went on to affirm that sentiment in Episode 3 of its Evolution of ARC Raiders docuseries, where it detailed its process behind making the ARCs mimic the behavior of actual robots. The environment also has a lot to do with ARC Raiders‘ immersion, as its visuals and audio design combine to form what feels like a living, breathing, unforgiving world.
ARC Raiders’ Immersion Fuels the Demand for a PvE Mode
Despite how much ARC Raiders might benefit from its immersion, it is that very thing that has come back to bite the extraction shooter, even without direct provocation. Since its launch, an increasingly wide divide has formed between players, with one side practically demanding that a PvE-only mode be added to the game and the other side not only begging Embark to leave ARC Raiders alone but also encouraging the opposing side to adapt to the game’s demands rather than resist them. It’s not entirely uncommon for a game with PvP elements to inspire such contention, but it has been an especially prominent argument in ARC Raiders—and it’s all due to the game’s knack for immersion.
In fact, some players would suggest that PvP actually ruins the game’s immersion because unfriendly encounters with other Raiders pull them out of the world. One Reddit post by user Primary-Kangaroo explicitly states that PvP is what ruins their immersion, going so far as to say that ARC Raiders is “not a multiplayer game, it’s an immersive single-player experience with other players around.” Funnily enough, this particular post’s claim is so bold that it is most likely satire meant to poke the proverbial PvE bear. Other posts, however, like one from Disastrous_Mud_8040, present serious arguments in support of a PvE mode for the game.
To back up their points, Disastrous_Mud_8040 claims they came from other shooters like Escape From Tarkov and The Division, thereby qualifying them to present a valid argument for a PvE mode to be added to ARC Raiders. “There’s so much potential world-building, atmosphere, and storytelling that could shine in a PvE experience. Right now, all of that is overshadowed by the high-stress loop of looting and escaping. Let players actually experience and appreciate the world the devs created,” Disastrous_Mud_8040 stated, ultimately rooting their argument in ARC Raiders‘ most immersive qualities being the star of the whole experience.
The other side of the aisle would argue that PvP is actually necessary to ARC Raiders‘ immersion, as it increases the tension that extraction shooters are known for and benefits Embark’s addition to the genre in the same way. Reddit user Substantial-Try-6219 said this very thing in a recent post, indirectly calling the PvE-only crowd hypocritical for appreciating the game’s immersion, and yet “hating when players act on it.” They went on to say in the post, “You are called a raider, which by definition is basically a thief. Why do so many ARC Raiders players want to rob agency from other users?”
It appears Embark would actually agree with this sentiment, too, as the developer mentioned in a different episode of The Evolution of ARC Raiders that ARC Raiders began as a PvE experience but was changed to PvPvE because “it didn’t work.” Executive Producer Aleksander Grondal stated during the episode, “I want this to be more than just a static backdrop where I’m fighting robots,” with the idea seeming to be that things were simply too boring without another threat on the surface.
Some fans in Substantial-Try-6219’s thread naturally disagreed with the OP, mentioning loopholes in ARC Raiders‘ logic of human beings who are trying to work together to rebuild society underground, yet attempt to kill each other on the surface. Others, however, suggest that war will make desperate people do strange, unexplainable things. Either way, in the end, both arguments stem from one’s own interpretation of ARC Raiders‘ immersion, making it one of the greatest divides between players over a month after its launch.
ARC Raiders’ Immersion Is Both Its Greatest Strength and Biggest Fault Line
At the center of ARC Raiders‘ ongoing divide is the simple fact that its immersion works so well. The world feels real enough that players stop thinking about mechanics and start thinking about presence, and that is where expectations split. Some want the tension of other Raiders to heighten that feeling, while others want the space to exist in the world without interruption. Either way, the argument only exists because the immersion is strong enough to be worth fighting over. Ironically, ARC Raiders‘ community is being pulled apart by the very thing that makes the game so special, and that contradiction is likely to define it for a long time to come.
- Released
-
October 30, 2025
- ESRB
-
Teen / Violence, Blood
