Topic / Subject
ARC Raiders’ design director says “friendly” vs “aggressive” lobbies are not a real matchmaking split, but “care bear lobbies” are encouraging the team to support more cooperative moments.

TL;DR
Embark says there is no secret friendly lobby switch. Players choosing to cooperate anyway is pushing the devs to build more chances for that, while keeping PvP in the core.

Key Details
• Per PC Gamer, design director Virgil Watkins said public tests produced “care bear lobbies” where players choose cooperation even with PvP enabled.
• Watkins said the team does not view lobbies as strictly friendly or aggressive, and behavior is fluid.
• Watkins said this cooperative behavior encourages Embark to create more opportunities for friendly interactions.
• The team still does not want to split ARC Raiders into pure PvE, per the interview framing.

Breakdown
This is a fascinating extraction shooter problem in a good way. The genre usually trains players to distrust everything, but ARC Raiders is seeing a counterculture where players experiment with being decent to strangers.

The big clarification is the matchmaking myth. The dev is saying the game is not sorting players into “nice lobby” and “sweat lobby” buckets. What people are feeling is a social trend, not a system flag.

The takeaway is direction, not a patch promise. Embark is listening to the emergent behavior and wants to design more openings for cooperation, while keeping the tension of PvP as part of what makes the game work.

What to Watch Next
• Any specific features that support nonverbal trust, like emotes or clearer intent cues
• How future tests balance friendly moments with risk and betrayal
• Whether Embark adds incentives for cooperation that do not break the PvPvE loop
• Community reaction if the game leans too friendly or too punishing

Sources
PC Gamer — “Arc Raiders design director says… ‘care bear lobbies’…”
GamesRadar — recap of the PC Gamer interview (headline not provided)

Comment
Do you want ARC Raiders to reward cooperation more, or should the genre stay mostly paranoia and betrayal?