If you’ve been noticing that recent matches of Arc Raiders are ending in a lot more PvP skirmishes than usual, there’s a high likelihood that you might’ve had it coming.
In a recent interview with GamesBeat’s Dean Takahashi, the CEO of Embark Studios, Patrick Söderlund, confirmed that the popular extraction shooter has recently been employing a kind of “aggression-based matchmaking” to group up more like-minded players.
During an inquiry about the studio’s approach to matchmaking, Söderlund said, “Since a week ago or so, we introduced a system where we also matchmake based on how prone you are to PvP or PvE. So if your preference is to do PvE, and have less conflict with players, you’ll get more matched up.”
The news seems to confirm what many players in the Arc Raiders community have suspected for a while now. In the last few weeks alone, there has been a steady increase in fervor around the notion of an aggression-based matchmaking system, especially as players found that they were running into more competitive lobbies. This is especially notable given the fact that much of the conversation around Arc Raiders at launch seemed to focus on how welcoming its playerbase was compared to the communities of other, more hostile extraction shooters, like Escape From Tarkov.
An interview with PC Gamer in December also yielded comments about “behavior-based matchmaking” which seemed to rile up players who felt justified in their theories.
Now though, it’s all out in the open, though it isn’t just as simple as matchmaking based on your kill count. As Söderlund is quick to clarify, there are several different levels of matchmaking going on at the same time in any Arc Raiders match. “First, it’s skill-based, of course. Then, you have solos, duos, and trios, “Söderlund claimed. Then after that, Arc Raiders matches you based on how likely you are to engage in fights with fellow players.
The way Söderlund talks about it, it sounds like team always figured that as the game grew in size it’d need to deploy measures like this to more fairly group the differently segments of the game community.
At least this way, players who want to maintain the more cooperative ambiance of those early Arc Raiders days can maintain that for longer, while the bloodthirsty looters of the Rust Belt are free to pick each other clean in their own lobbies.