ARC Raiders Players Are Too Good, Devs Tease Major Difficulty 'Escalation'

ARC Raiders players have gotten so good at the game the developers are now planning to implement a difficulty spike.

The PvPvE game is still thriving compared to competitors like Battlefield 6 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, largely due to its extremely viral gameplay.

Players have been interacting with each other through the in-game voice chat, leading to some hilarious interactions that have garnered greater interest from those who haven’t played it yet.

It could be about to get a lot harder though, and there's a simple reason why.

Embark Studios

Since launch, the developers at Embark Studios believe players are having too easy of a time.

For instance those who play with a controller seemingly have a huge advantage due to the strong aim-assist, and PC players have been abusing the settings to remove anything that would obscure their vision during gameplay.

These are deeply mechanical issues but the devs think the base game could be getting too easy as well.

The response?

More powerful Arcs. Lead designer Virgil Watkins spoke to GamesRadar about the future of the game and its enemies, saying "I think we are pretty happy with what they are now, but I don't think we can subsist forever on that, I think eventually, if we introduce yet another six-legged giant spidery robot, it's kind of like, 'Okay, we got it.'

“So yeah, I think it's looking toward where we take those types of experiences in the future to something else or something additional, seeing how we can escalate the experience for the player on the PvE side.”

This feels like a spot on way of improving the game, as some more varied enemy designs can go a long way. Just look at other live-service games like Helldivers 2 seeing massive spikes in player numbers simply from adding a new faction to the game.

The only difficulty, which is something that Watkins speaks about in the interview, is how it’ll fit into Embark’s overall vision for the game.

Lean too much into the PvE and there’ll be less reason to engage in PvP, and vice-versa.

At the time of writing it feels like ARC Raiders is striking a solid balance, which is probably why its concurrent player numbers are so consistently high.

There’s plenty of new content in the pipeline for ARC Raiders as we move through 2026, and it’s going to be tough for competition like Battlefield 6 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 to keep up with the pace.