Arc Raiders' PvE mode goes live today: 'This is an opportunity to team up in the fight against the machines'

If you boil it down, there are only two kinds of Arc Raiders players: those who like helping one another in the face of certain death and huge arcs, and those who prefer PvP. It seems to be quite a divisive choice within the community, but now there'll be a mode specifically for those who'd rather fight the arcs instead of each other.

Shared Watch is a new annual holiday event "that reminds us of the true enemy, by celebrating those that look out for their fellow raiders," an official blog post says. "Tolerate, team-up, or take out some Arc—it's all in the spirit of the Shared Watch."

This will be Arc Raiders' first specifically PvE mode. Before this, there were the blessed PvE lobbies, which you could only get into if you sacrificed yourself in PvP lobbies, refusing to shoot at anyone, even if they were spraying you with bullets. But it wasn't a failsafe, and Embark hasn't given us enough information about aggression-based matchmaking to know how it works for sure.

Embark has actually said in the past that Arc Raiders wasn't built with PvP in mind, that gunning down fellow raiders doesn't fit in with the ethos of the game. But you can't restrict how people play in an extraction shooter, especially if killing other players is a lucrative pastime.

This is how Shared Watch differentiates itself from the regular mode; there's no incentive to kill other raiders. "Players will earn merits from destroying, assisting and damaging ARC and earn rewards," the post says. "No merits will be earned from PvP encounters. Bring a friend or bring a stranger, but above all, bring enough ammo to make sure the machines notice you first."

My only worry is that while this mode doesn't encourage PvP, it also doesn't completely ban it. Meaning someone could still kill other players, they'd just be doing it for the love of the game, as they wouldn't get anything else from it. So enjoy the Shared Watch raiders, just keep your eyes peeled for suspicious behaviour.