A developer at Embark Studios has clarified previous comments made by the studio's CEO regarding the controversial aggression-based matchmaking system in its successful third-person extraction shooter, ARC Raiders. While the matchmaking system in ARC Raiders is aggression-based, as previously revealed, Embark says it will continue to be fine-tuned and that labeling it “aggression-based” is a bit of a “misnomer”.
Nowadays many like live service titles Call of Duty, Battlefieldor Fortnite will use some form of skill-based matchmaking as the main system for pairing players with each other when searching for a multiplayer match. The finer details will of course vary from game to game, but ARC Raiders' Matchmaking is a bit more complicated. Shortly after the game launched, fans began to theorize that the shooter used either an aggression-based system or one that took into account the level of a piece of gear a player took Topside. After weeks of speculation, Embark's CEO finally revealed it ARC Raiders uses an aggression-based matchmaking system. “We introduced a system where we also match based on how inclined you are towards PvP or PvE,” explained the CEO.
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ARC Raiders Dev explains their matchmaking system
Embark's CEO said the system isn't a “full science,” but explained how players are less likely to be paired with PvP players if they only engage in PvE themselves. Now, in a new interview with GamesRadar+, design lead Virgil Watkins has expanded on how the system works. “It's a bit of a misnomer to call it aggression-based,” the developer told the outlet. He goes on to explain that Embark will continue to tweak how the system works, “but people are not far off from how they think it works.”
Watkins was asked if Embark is concerned about people gaming the system to get into PvE lobbies, one of many concerns ARC Raiders players have about the system, but that's apparently “part of the experience,” according to the developer. “If you really want to try to adapt and play in a slightly less hostile environment, you can afford it [a way] to do it. But it should be clear to people, I hope, that it's not binary either. Obviously you can say it's weighted one way or another, but it's never like you're now only with PvE players, you're now only with PvP players. It is a weighted system. There's a lot of layers to it, so it's not quite as A/B as people might assume,” Watkins said.
Despite previous claims from Embark's CEO, Patrick Söderlund, Watkins says that no form of skill-based matchmaking is taken into account either. “We don't do anything like skill-based matchmaking or gear-based matchmaking,” the developer said, shutting down speculation that those factors were also weighed when looking for a match. While skill-based matchmaking is often used in titles such as Call of Duty (up to Black Ops 7at least), Embark says it plans to continue with its current system and will “continue to monitor match health and player response and adjust it from there.”
The design lead then went on to break down the circumstances behind all PvP engagements and whether or not the system can actually distinguish between self-defense or outright aggression. “We can track who shoots first and who takes damage and who [does] whatever,” says the developer. He goes on to say, “But the one thing the system doesn't do is try to assume intent. If I'm a really bad player and you're a good player, and I'm the attacker and I'm just missing all my shots and you're defending yourself, the game doesn't know what the intent was. They just saw that you killed me because I'm horrible.” So while the system can track certain elements, according to Watkins, it “doesn't presuppose intent,” meaning there are no value or moral judgments; it's simply a system that records whether or not a player is engaging in PvP.
After a monumental first few months, 2026 looks set to be a big year for ARC Raiders. While the studio has yet to reveal its roadmap for the next 12 months, it has already begun cracking down on cheaters and hackers. Last week, Embark tried to spread anger among the community as cheaters continued to thrive ARC Raiders. In a new statement, the studio said it is taking the issue very seriously and plans to make significant changes to the game's rulesets and deploy new detection mechanisms to identify and remove cheaters. It has since been reported that cheaters are now getting bans, albeit only temporary ones.
- Released
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30 October 2025
- ESRB
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Teen/violence, blood
