Arc Raiders will not feature PvP leaderboards or nemesis-style bounty systems, Embark Studios CEO Patrick Söderlund told GamesBeat. In a discussion with Dean Takahashi, Söderlund framed Arc Raiders as a game where encounters with other players are meaningful but not reduced to a scoreboard. The core experience, he indicated, remains PvE-driven, with PvP elements used to heighten risk and tension rather than define success. The stance reinforces a design direction in which danger may come from other raiders, but victory is not awarded by killing opponents.
During the interview, Söderlund said the team has “had several discussions” about PvP mechanics, but ultimately believes such features would place too much emphasis on PvP. “The game isn't about shooting other players. You can do that if you want to, but the ethos of the game has never been to go in and shoot players,” he stated. He added that leaderboards and nemesis or bounty systems would “place too much of an emphasis on PvP” and would shift Arc Raiders away from its current direction. PvP, he noted, would be enabled only “to a point” because it serves to craft tension rather than define the core experience. Knowing that players pursue their own goals—whether cooperative or hostile—makes Arc Raiders feel more unpredictable and vibrant. Söderlund also recalled that Arc Raiders’ early PvE incarnation was “quite fun,” but it truly came alive once other raiders were added, thanks to the “subtle ways of signalling” Embark could employ to complicate encounters.
You hear them shooting—audio is a very important part of this game. You hear them encountering Arc and other players. You see the raider flares as they go down, and those signals create a sense of a living world. “At one point, I came back after a playtest, and the flares were gone, and I just said ‘Bring them back.’ They’re such an iconic part of this game, and they signal to other players that action is happening somewhere. It makes it feel populated in an important way,” Söderlund explained. This emphasis on auditory cues and visible signals is part of Embark’s effort to preserve tension without turning PvP into a guaranteed endpoint. A leaderboard, he argued, would act as a signal of activity that could distort the delicate balance of will-they-won’t-they PvP dynamics and undermine the broader balance of the game’s systems.
For the foreseeable future, PvP-minded raiders will have to continue seeking violence as its own reward. Embark’s approach aligns with an aggression-based matchmaking framework that groups players by intent, while avoiding formal competitive metrics that might standardize or incentivize aggressive play beyond its current role in crafting tension. The team has made clear that the core goal is to keep Arc Raiders dynamic and emergent, rather than turning it into a conventional PvP leaderboard experience. As development continues, players can expect the world to respond to encounters with a mix of audio cues, visual signals, and environmental storytelling that preserve the precarious balance between cooperation and conflict.
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The conversation surrounding Arc Raiders’ PvP design underscores Embark’s broader intent: to create a tense, unpredictable shared space where players’ decisions shape the course of each run without ranking those decisions on a public leaderboard. While PvP chatter will persist in the community, the studio is prioritizing mechanics that support tension, collaboration, and emergent gameplay over traditional competitive structures. As the game evolves, players will be watching to see how these design priorities manifest in balance, pacing, and the ways in which other raiders influence each expedition’s outcome.
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