Embark Studios has released a major update to the player versus player matchmaking system in ARC Raiders, clarifying how the game tracks player behavior and groups teams together during matches.

How does matchmaking change?

Earlier this year, Embark Studios shifted away from monthly content drops to focus on two massive updates per year. Even with this new release schedule, a dedicated live service team continues to release small, frequent patches to address balance issues and fix bugs.

The latest patch builds upon recent search time improvements by directly changing how player aggression is calculated. Previously, even when a player was simply defending themselves in a fight, that encounter still carried a small amount of weight toward their overall style profile. Following community feedback, Embark Studios is now testing a system that removes defensive actions from the calculation entirely. Under this new model, defending yourself against an enemy will no longer penalize your profile or mark you as an aggressive player.

How does the system judge aggression?

To clarify how these changes work in practice, Embark Studios outlined the specific rules the system uses to judge engagements:The Initiator: A player or group is marked as the aggressor if they deal damage, down, or knock out an opponent first. The team defending itself is not penalized.

Fight Severity: Fights are weighed based on duration and damage. Long firefights with heavy damage carry a high weight toward an aggressive rating, whereas brief fights, accidental shots, or fleeing players have almost no impact.Third Party Attacks: Entering an ongoing battle between two other teams is automatically classified as starting a fight, which adds aggressive weight to the profile of the team joining the battle.

Crossover Event:

Along with the matchmaking changes, players are reminded that the crossover event between The Finals and ARC Raiders is coming to an end. Players have a short time left to finish contracts in The Finals to unlock the Azimuth outfit and the Archaeologist Backpack for ARC Raiders before the contest wraps up on July thirty, twenty twenty six. After that date, the event flips, allowing ARC Raiders players to earn the Azimuth bundle for The Finals by completing a mission topside.