Arc Raiders PvE update: New limited-time mode explained — what players need to know

Dubai: The most popular shooter on Steam right now and one of the top extraction shooters to play with friends is finally getting its most requested update: a full PvE mode.

Arc Raiders, the third-person extraction shooter from Embark Studios, launched its first ever dedicated Player vs Environment mode on February 10 2026. Called 'Shared Watch,' this two-week event runs until February 24and fundamentally changes how the game rewards its players, at least temporarily.

The concept is simple. Fight the machines, earn rewards. Fight other players, earn absolutely nothing. PvP is still technically enabled because Embark isn't completely throwing their game design out of the window, but there is zero incentive to do it. For a genre where betraying your teammates is practically a love language, this is quite the statement.

Since Arc Raiders launched, the community has been having a very loud and very ongoing argument about PvP. A significant number of players have been desperate for a mode where they can focus entirely on battling the Arcs, the robotic enemies that serve as the game's primary threat, without some opportunistic raider stealing all their loot at the extraction point.

Previously, PvE enthusiasts had to rely on informal arrangements, essentially hoping everyone in the lobby had silently agreed to be friendly that day. It was chaotic, unreliable and occasionally heartbreaking.

Embark Studios has actually admitted that Arc Raiders wasn't originally built with heavy PvP combat in mind, which makes the community tension around it feel even more poignant. "Shared Watch" feels like the developers gently acknowledging that perhaps things got a little away from them.

If this whole "cooperate against machines" setup sounds familiar, that's because it is. The event draws some obvious comparisons to Helldivers 2, Arrowhead's wildly popular co-op shooter where players unite against robotic enemies in a gloriously chaotic fashion. Some in the Arc Raiders community have already made the connection, suggesting that Embark may have looked at just how well forced cooperation works in Helldivers and thought, yes, let's have some of that.

During the event, merits, the in-game currency used for progression and rewards, are earned exclusively by destroying, damaging and assisting against Arc machines. The more robots you obliterate cooperatively, the more you progress. It's refreshingly straightforward for a genre that usually rewards chaos.

The event also brings back the "Cold Snap" map condition, which proved popular during the winter period and adds a satisfying environmental challenge to proceedings. There's a new event track with various rewards to work through, giving players plenty of reason to keep logging in throughout the fortnight.

No game update is complete without new things to make your character look impressive, 'Shared Watch' introduces a couple of new cosmetic options worth knowing about.

The 'Vulpine' set, available in the in-game store, features a fox pelt hat, muted leather outfit and white face paint. Meanwhile, the "Slugger" set, a padded baseball-themed outfit that somehow makes perfect sense in a post-apocalyptic robot world, is earned by progressing through the event track rather than purchased outright.

Beyond the big PvE focus, the update comes with several gameplay adjustments. Throwable weapons now deal more damage to smaller enemies but less to larger ones like the Leaper and Bastion, which should make combat feel a bit more considered. A rather annoying bug that allowed Trailblazers to deal damage through walls has finally been fixed, though the infamous duplication glitch remains outstanding.

Community Manager Ossen teased on the Arc Raiders Discord that a larger update called "Shrouded Sky" is coming later in February, promising "a new threat in the storm." Details remain scarce, but it suggests Embark has no intention of slowing down content releases anytime soon.

The hope among fans is that this becomes a rotating event, giving cooperative players their dedicated fix whilst keeping the full PvP experience intact for those who genuinely enjoy the anxiety of not knowing whether their squadmate is about to rob them blind.

For now though, the robots are the enemy, your fellow raiders are your friends, and Arc Raiders is briefly the most wholesome it has ever been. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Areeba Hashmi is a trainee at Gulf News.