It's not the dedicated PvE mode that, I maintain, would actually be a terrible idea, but Arc Raiders is really leaning into PvE with a new limited-time event called Shared Watch.
Quietly announced on social media channels like X/Twitter on Monday, Shared Watch will run from Tuesday, February 10 through Tuesday, February 24, giving players two weeks to engage in extra-jolly cooperation.
With the subtext of, "Please stop shooting each other for 10 minutes please God," developer Embark Studios writes: "You watch my back, I'll watch yours – that's how Speranza keeps ticking.
"Join your fellow Raiders in celebrating the Shared Watch; team up with strangers, turn your barrels on the machines, and earn rewards in the process."
Those rewards include a new baseball umpire-themed outfit called The Slugger, it seems. Additional rewards remain to be seen, as details about the event are still a bit thin. I assume there's going to be a track of miscellaneous rewards to help distinguish this event from the new and permanent Arc trophy case, which is also about killing bots.
Arc Raiders is a PvPvE game at its core, but it's ultimately about PvE. You can already team up with strangers and shoot Arc together at any time; Shared Watch just feels like a little extra incentive, and an easy way for Embark to lean into the pacifist play style that a surprisingly large portion of the community has adopted.
Shared Watch does appear to be a very minor side dish, for the record. I've seen chatter around Arc Raiders adding a dedicated PvE mode, but this is not that; you can trust that PvP will still be happening in the next two weeks. That said, even as a PvP fan myself, I reckon I'll be carrying extra defibs to help some randoms.
