ARC Raiders Didn’t Just Nail Extraction – It Quietly Reinvented Matchmaking
On paper, ARC Raiders is “just” another extraction shooter: drop in, scavenge, survive, extract. In practice, it’s done something a lot harder than designing a good loot loop – it’s made a contentious version of skill-based matchmaking feel… mostly accepted.
Embark CEO Patrick Söderlund has now confirmed that ARC Raiders doesn’t just look at skill and party size when building lobbies. It also tracks how you play, especially how often you engage in PvP versus sticking to PvE. That one extra signal has big implications for how the game feels, who sticks with it, and why its player retention looks nothing like some of its rivals.
Where Battlefield 6 reportedly shed roughly 85% of its player base within months, ARC Raiders has retained around 91% of players over the same window. For a new IP, that’s absurdly strong – and the matchmaking model is a big part of why.
From “Sweaty Lobbies” to Style Buckets: The Context Around SBMM
Why Skill-Based Matchmaking Became a Dirty Phrase
Over the last decade, “SBMM” has turned into a four-letter word for a lot of shooter fans. Players complain about:
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Feeling punished for playing well
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Every match becoming a high-stress sweat fest
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Casual sessions turning into hidden ranked modes
It got loud enough that even a giant like Call of Duty responded, with Black Ops 7 leaning away from traditional SBMM – a move that’s drawn mixed reactions.
Against that backdrop, you’d expect ARC Raiders, a brand-new extraction shooter, to tread lightly. Instead, Söderlund openly says:
“Obviously first it’s skill-based of course… then we also… matchmake based on how prone you are to PvP or PvE.”
The key difference isn’t that ARC Raiders uses skill. It’s what it layers on top.
How ARC Raiders’ Matchmaking Actually Works (As Far As We Know)
The Three-Layer System
From Söderlund’s comments, you can reconstruct a rough hierarchy of how the game builds lobbies:
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Skill First
Players are grouped into a band of similar performance – likely using a composite of win rate, survival rate, damage dealt, extractions, etc. The exact formula is secret, but it’s the familiar “SBMM core.” -
Party Configuration
The system then respects whether you’re queuing as:-
Solo
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Duo
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Trio
This avoids throwing a lone player into a lobby full of coordinated three-stacks wherever possible – a common frustration in team-based games.
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Aggression / Playstyle Profile
Finally comes the interesting part: how “prone you are to PvP or PvE.”In practice, this likely involves multiple signals, for example:
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Frequency of initiating combat against other players
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Time spent in PvE encounters vs actively hunting squads
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How often you third-party fights
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How often you avoid conflict and go straight for loot/extract
The goal isn’t to create pure pacifist or pure deathmatch lobbies, but to nudge you into instances where the average behavior matches your own tendencies.
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Söderlund is honest about the limits:
“Obviously it’s not a full science.”
And that’s important. The system doesn’t magically guarantee you’ll never run into a psycho raider while you’re happily looting. It just heavily tilts the odds.
Why Aggression-Based Matchmaking Makes Sense for an Extraction Shooter
Fixing a Design Problem Survival Games Never Solved
Most survival and extraction games historically throw everyone into the same blender:
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New players who want to learn PvE systems
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Duos who just want to farm materials
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Squads who log in solely to wipe half the server
The result is familiar:
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PvE-leaning players get repeatedly ambushed, quit, and never come back.
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PvP hunters get bored if there aren’t enough human targets.
ARC Raiders is trying to solve that tension by clustering players into “soft archetypes”:
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Low-conflict raiders: people who mostly fight ARC enemies, avoid picking unnecessary PvP, focus on scavenging and extraction.
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High-conflict raiders: players who routinely push gunfights, chase gunfire, and treat other players as their primary content.
For the first group, this means:
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Fewer random wipe-outs while you’re learning map flow and AI patterns
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More raids that actually reach the “extraction” part of the fantasy
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Less feeling like you’re cannon fodder in someone else’s highlight reel
For the second group:
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More lobbies where other squads are also volatile
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Less downtime spent wandering empty corners of the map looking for fights
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Raids that feel closer to a tactical brawl than a walking sim
In other words, the system doesn’t just protect “casuals” – it optimizes fun for the wolves as much as the sheep.
Player Impact: Why ARC Raiders’ SBMM Hasn’t Triggered the Usual Backlash (Yet)
It Helps That the Game Is Actually Popular
A lot of matchmaking discourse ignores a boring but crucial variable: population size.
ARC Raiders launched hot and stayed hot. Retaining roughly 91% of its early player base over the first months means:
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Plenty of players at every skill band
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Enough PvE-leaners and PvP-hunters to fill style buckets
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Short queue times even with multiple filters (skill, party size, aggression)
That’s what lets Embark get away with layering more conditions on matchmaking without creating ghost queues. In a smaller game, splitting by skill and behavior would blow up wait times.
It Feels More Like Curation Than Punishment
The other SBMM games that drew the most heat often made players feel like:
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The better you played, the worse your next lobby felt
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Every match was tuned to keep your K/D close to 1.0
ARC Raiders reframes the conversation. Instead of:
“We’re tightening your matches because you did well.”
It’s more:
“We’re putting you around people who like to play like you.”
That’s a subtle but important difference in perceived intent. You still get skill-banded, but the marketing and lived experience lean toward preference matching rather than outcome control.
The System-Level Concerns: Echo Chambers, Edge Cases, and Exploits
For all its upsides, aggression-based matchmaking isn’t risk-free.
1. Echo Chambers of Toxicity
If the game clusters ultra-aggressive players together, those lobbies could:
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Skew toward hyper-toxic comms
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Normalize griefing-style behavior
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Turn into “sweat cage matches” that burn people out faster
The flipside: overly peaceful clusters might feel too safe and predictable, sapping the tension that makes extraction games compelling.
2. Mixed-Behavior Parties
Söderlund didn’t answer the trickiest edge case:
What happens when a trio mixes extremes?
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Player A: hardcore PvP hunter
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Player B: neutral
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Player C: almost pure PvE farmer
Which profile wins?
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If the system averages them, all three might end up in lukewarm “middle-ground” lobbies that don’t fully satisfy anyone.
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If it prioritizes the most aggressive, Player C may feel dragged into matches they didn’t sign up for.
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If it prioritizes the least aggressive, Player A may feel like the game is nerfing their preferred experience.
Whatever rule Embark is using here will quietly shape a lot of party experiences – and they’re unlikely to spell it out publicly.
3. Behavior Manipulation
Once players fully internalize that their behavior influences matchmaking, you can expect some to:
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Deliberately avoid PvP for a while to qualify for “easier” lobbies, then flip the switch mid-match.
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Play passively in low-stakes raids to lower their aggression profile, then sweat hard on “serious” runs.
Because Embark is looking at trends over time rather than a single match, there’s some protection. But any behavior-based system can be gamed if the incentives are strong enough.
Why Other Shooters Will Be Watching ARC Raiders Closely
Right now, ARC Raiders is doing something a lot of big shooters are scared to try openly:
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It admits it uses skill-based matchmaking.
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It adds another invisible axis (playstyle) on top.
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It’s getting away with it, in part because the game is thriving.
If that retention story holds over the long term, don’t be surprised if:
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Other extraction shooters start experimenting with similar “aggression buckets.”
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Arena shooters split casual queues by “engagement profile” – rushers vs anchors, for example.
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Co-op titles adopt behavior filters to keep speedrunners away from slow, methodical groups.
ARC Raiders is essentially running a live experiment in SBMM 2.0, where the question isn’t just “how good are you?” but also “what kind of session are you here for?”
The Long-Term Question: Can It Scale With a Growing Skill Gap?
As Söderlund notes, the skill gap between hardcore and casual players is only going to widen over time. That’s inevitable in any live-service game.
The real test for ARC Raiders’ matchmaking will come later, when:
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The top of the ladder is populated by ultra-optimized veterans
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New waves of players arrive via discounts, DLC drops, or platform expansions
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The population starts to fragment across more maps, modes, and events
At that point, a system that currently feels invisible and friendly could start exposing its seams:
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Longer queues for specific behavior bands
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More obvious “sweaty” versus “cozy” lobbies
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Frustration from players who feel trapped in a certain profile
For now, though, Embark has managed something rare: a skill-based system that openly acknowledges what it’s doing, folds in playstyle, and hasn’t sparked a major revolt. In a genre where matchmaking drama is almost guaranteed, that’s an achievement in itself.
