Gaming‘ARC Raiders’ Leans Even Harder Into PvE With New Shrouded Sky ChangeByPaul Tassi,
Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. News and opinion about video games, television, movies and the internet.Follow AuthorFeb 25, 2026, 09:08am EST--:-- / --:--This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.ARC RaidersEmbarkARC Raiders has always been a PvPvE extraction shooter, but it continues to tilt toward PvE in a number of ways, from increasing rewards for kills to PvE-focused events to saying it needs to buff its biggest bosses since entire servers were co-op killing them. Now, there’s something new to add to the list, but some people think it’s a bigger deal than others.
In its latest Shrouded Sky patch, ARC Raiders has removed PvP feats from the game, meaning players will no longer be tasked with specific PvP challenges for rewards. It’s yet another lean toward PvE or at least, toward benefitting PvE players.
The argument that this doesn’t change much for PvP players is that the main goal of killing other players is to take their stuff, which is more valuable than whatever rewards you might get from feats.
That may be true, and while I don’t think this hurts PvP players in any significant way, this does help PvE players. Now, ARC Raiders doesn’t make it feel like you’re forced into killing other players to get feats when that’s not how you want to play. Similarly, it will help with three-man teams that one person isn’t going in guns blazing just to get PvP feats while the others want no part of that. It will also discourage last minute elevator kills just to achieve those feats.
ARC RaidersEmbarkMORE FOR YOUIt seems to me that this kind of change is being made because ARC does not want its casual, often-PvE-focused playerbase to start slipping away. In the last two months since the start of 26, ARC Raiders has lost about 40% of its players. That’s happened for a number of reasons, but the point is that ARC wants retention, and they think keeping more casual players around is a significant part of that. The last month in particular has been pretty brutal, the game going from 410,000 peak concurrents on Steam to 280,000. The goal now is for Shrouded Sky to increase that.
There are other, more universally disliked changes with this patch, namely that the Wolfpack now requires a Rocketeer driver, which seems counterintuitive to its nature. There is a slate of nerfs that some in the community believe will push players toward Marathon, literally the day before its big free Server Slam event starts tomorrow. Whether that’s true remains to be seen.
There is a narrative taking shape that ARC is going to be for PvE or casual PvP players while Marathon is going to be more hardcore, both on the PvE front with its tough UESC troops, but especially for PvP with the game having far more action-oriented gunfights and a shoot-first-ask-questions-later style of play. Tomorrow we’ll know more about how this all may play out.
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