Arc Raiders' Frozen Trail update is the talk of the town, but an even bigger change could be on the horizon. From October 13 through October 20, developer Embark will test something that some players have wanted from day one: a pure PvE mode. Executive producer Aleksander Grøndal tells me this test is an essential step toward answering a question that even the devs have had since launch, even if it ends up splitting the game in two one day.

Originally, Arc Raiders was a pure PvE game about fighting giant robots. It only pivoted to a PvPvE mix very late in development. The devs also ditched the free-to-play structure and put everything they had into the extraction shooter basket, and miraculously, it paid off. As a result, going back to pure PvE feels like a huge risk.

"Naturally, we were a bit like, 'Are we gonna open this door? What does that mean?'" Grøndal says. "We had that question ongoing for a long time, maybe even too long, to be fair."

An Arc Raiders PvE mode is just a limited test for now, but Grøndal suggests there's potential for much more. I asked if he can imagine a world where Arc Raiders is essentially split into two games – the game we've known, and a pure PvE version – and he reckons "it's very possible."

"I mean, the community is already split along those lines," he continues. "If the game eventually will represent that? Quite possibly. I think it's important to respect how the players want to enjoy the game, even if it doesn't necessarily fully gel with what we thought the game was initially or how we designed the game to be initially.

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