'One of the chillest communities I’ve ever encountered': Arc Raiders solos are choosing love over war, and it's beautiful

We've known since the earliest days of MMO PvP servers and tense DayZ standoffs that, given the opportunity, players love to kill each other after promising they wouldn't. So too is the case in extraction shooters, where truces tend to have a shorter expiration date than fast food lettuce, and your fellow man is hauling a sack of loot you could really use.

But Arc Raiders is different, at least so far.

After nearly 20 hours of scavenging the surface as a solo operator, I'm here to tell you the Arc Raiders community is remarkably chill. The vast majority of my encounters with other players have begun with words, not guns. Instead of reaching for my Rattler rifle, I first reach for the "Don't shoot!" emote. Most of the time, we both put our guns away, exchange pleasantries, and go our separate ways.

This has now happened dozens of times. If that sounds like exaggeration, know that I'm just as perplexed by the whole thing.

Since Arc Raiders' first beta earlier this year, I've been convinced that its propensity for friendliness couldn't last once a million-plus people got their hands on it. I figured it'd take less than a day for the folks who play Rust and DayZ like they're sociopath simulators to flood in and treat the golden rule like a chew toy. Some people have, obviously—my first run of the day ended in just a few minutes because a rando decided to shotgun me in the face—but it's amazing that those sour encounters have proven the exception (assuming you're not the aggressor).

Maybe the Arc community is a little different in your part of the world (I'm NA West), but the stories I'm reading online suggest a philosophy of talking first and shooting last has spread far and wide.

"The solo community is one of the chillest communities I’ve ever encountered in gaming," wrote user iReaddit-KRTORR on a top-upvoted post in the Arc Raiders subreddit. "Going solo, I fully expected it to be a free-for-all. Kill or be killed. All for one. But I’ve been largely surprised at how chill and helpful people are in solo. People largely don’t want to lose their gear needlessly and that is incentivizing passive play.

"Don’t get me wrong, I’ve still been KOed, betrayed, shot on sight, killed at the extraction, etc but that’s the game. And not being 100% certain is exciting too."

I knew Arc Raiders had something special going on when, the other day, I used proximity chat to talk a guy out of killing me after he'd already shot me three times. All I did was say in a genuine tone that "Hey man, I'm friendly! Just looking for a lemon for my chicken!" and it's like all the bullets fell out of his pistol. He told me where to find lemons, then let me go.

Then yesterday, I had the jump on a player who didn't check their corners as they strolled into the Water Treatment Facility in Dam. As I watched them loot, I weighed my options: If I say hello, they might shoot me knowing that I already took everything good from this room. If I just shoot first, I'll probably win without a scratch.

But I'd already had enough pleasant experiences with strangers that paying the kindness forward didn't really feel like a risk. I startled them with a "Don't shoot!," they responded with the same bark, and we both backed away.

As user TiSoBr has also observed, "the best weapon in ARC Raiders is talking."

"Pro tip: pointing your rifle at someone while yelling “friendly!” obviously sends mixed signals. Maybe just holster it instead. A bit of trust goes a long way."

It really does. The game is trending so far in the pacifist direction right now that some folks are giving "PvPers" grief about their life choices. It's gotten bad enough on the Arc Raiders subreddit that a mod had to clarify it's not OK to be toxic to players who choose to play like villains.

Indeed, putting the "PvP" in "PvPvE" is a valid way to enjoy Arc Raiders, and if you're grouping up with friends, it's probably even necessary. In my experience, pre-made groups are way more hostile, and in an interview with PC Gamer, Embark Studios design director Virgil Watkins confirmed that squads vs solo is like playing a different game.

"There's a very clear delta in how those two groups of people play. Solo players tend to be far more social when they do run into other people and far more combat avoidant in general," Watkins said. "You do get that 'I'm a lone gunslinger, I'm gonna take on all comers.' A lot of people there are quite happy to engage in PvP, loot quietly, sneak away. And then squads, I think, feel bolstered by having your friends with you, and so you will chase a lot of action and stuff. There's a lot more 'shoot first, ask no questions whatsoever.'"

There's probably more to unpack about how easy it is to adopt an "us vs them" mentality against all outsiders when you have numbers, and how games give strangers permission to pretend(?) to be terrible people, but I'll leave such observations to sociology experts. The point is, the solo experience is a different story, and I don't think it's just because lone wanderers are more vulnerable.

We stumbled upon a random flute player ontop of the tower. from r/ArcRaiders

The possibility for pacifism is built into Arc Raiders itself: Most players are entering matches looking for very specific resources needed to upgrade benches or craft better guns back at home. Those resources often aren't rare, so there's no reason to assume what you're looking for is in someone else's pockets. There are other reasons to want someone else's hard-earned loot—like picking up a better gun or selling all their stuff for an easy profit, but unlike a survival game, Arc Raiders does not define you by what you're holding. Players have permanent upgrades, skill trees, and challenges that are more interesting than proving you can out-shoot someone who wasn't even trying to fight.

Even Embark doesn't hide its enthusiasm for nonviolent encounters. Numerous tips on loading screens are essentially guides to deescalating conflict—deploying emotes, using a microphone, stowing your weapon. You don't even get that much XP for killing players.

I maintain the possibility that weeks, months, or years of Arc raiding could one day make grizzled cynics of its community. Incentives might change as folks max out their stashes, run out of benches to upgrade, and get bored with being nice. If that does happen, I hope Embark will think up incentives to maintain this surprisingly wholesome spirit that Arc Raiders has launched with. It's nice.