Arc Raiders is absolutely ruling the Steam charts right now, and its 700K+ concurrent PC players certainly don't seem like they have any plans of stopping. Now, the game has brilliantly emergent gameplay, accessible extraction-shooter mechanics, and a solid roadmap, but there's something else that it's becoming rapidly popular for — the wholesome player base.

If any Arc Raiders clip or reel has come across your feed, I'm willing to bet that it's been about players banding together, greeting each other, and helping others out of tough spots. That's the kind of game Arc Raiders has emerged to be — one that encourages co-operation. That, too, in a PvP(-vE) game where anything goes. And if you take a look at the Steam achievements for Arc Raiders, there are actually a bunch of wholesome stats there to decode.

Arc Raiders is quickly becoming the internet's friendliest warzone

Raiders becoming friends is one of the game's biggest strengths

Arc Raiders has accidentally but definitely sparked the friendliest warzone on the internet today. Extraction shooters usually turn every lobby into a trustless wasteland with tense standoffs and instant betrayal, and while Embark Studios' latest does have its fair share of these things, Arc Raiders has largely flipped that script. Steam, as one of the game's two platforms on PC, proves exactly that through its achievements.

Proximity chat is being wielded like a friendly handshake here. Every run in Arc Raiders feels like an unspoken social experiment, a world where raiders greet each other, negotiate peace, and team up with total strangers simply because it feels right. It's bizarre, it's heartwarming, and it's becoming one of the game's greatest strengths.

Over half the Arc Raiders players are pacifists... more or less

The Arc Raiders Unyielding achievement still eludes half the players

According to the Unyielding achievement, only 53.5% of the total player base is yet to knock out even ten raiders. Considering the new Stella Montis maps and how it encourages PvP, and even the fact that PvP in Arc Raiders is absolutely valid and allowed, more than half the player base on PC has simply chosen not to engage in outright combat. In fact, PvP encounters have actually increased for a lot of players across the game, and that was bound to happen, too. After all, three weeks in, everyone has collected plenty of significant weapons and is less afraid of losing their powerful, more upgraded weapons and loot.

Despite that, over 53.5% of the players in Arc Raiders have barely engaged in PvP. Sure, this also includes those who've only done the deed nine times instead of ten, but that's still a huge portion of players who are choosing not to engage in human-versus-human combat in a game built around a whole man vs. machine arc. That's the kind of community that the game has fostered, where through proximity chat, or even the surprisingly-emotive chat wheel, players are able to communicate well with each other, and most players just let others pass on by.

A full fifth of raiders have never hurt another

Not everyone has 'Crossed the Threshold' in Arc Raiders

The "Crossed the Threshold" Steam achievement in Arc Raiders is given to those players who knock out a Raider. Just one single raider. And the kicker? Nearly a full fifth of PC players haven't even done that. That's over 17 percent of players — over 125,000 players, who just haven't raised a gun at, and shot another raider in the game.

Does that also include those who may have bought the game, played through the opening level, and just left the game collecting virtual dust in their library? Yes. But still, we're talking about almost a full fifth of players who have never shot another raider and knocked them out. That also includes yours truly, because I will never shoot first. Even after the full process of spamming the "Don't Shoot!" cry, and trying hard to communicate to others about how "chill" I am, if I'm shot first, I am yet to succeed in fighting back properly. However, that's also something I plan on changing very soon, now that I have a few solid blueprints secured.

The takeaway here, however, is that everything you've heard and seen about Arc Raiders being a rather happy community that tries to preach peace at all times, is true. The whole "it's us against the clankers, gentlemen" philosophy is very real, and I've seen it in action first-hand all too well.

Almost every player has extracted with a stranger

The friends we made along the way

One of the top-five global achievement achieved in Arc Raiders right now on Steam is "The Friends We Made Along The Way." Players can achieve this achievement by extracting with another raider not on their team. Whether you're playing solo or in a team, you know exactly how dicey the situation gets when an extraction elevator is called in the game.

This is the moment when everyone is ready to pack up and leave for home, but that only comes around when they have something valuable to take back. At the same time, extraction campers are something that every single looter-shooter is packed with, and in Arc Raiders, the online community has taken to calling them "rats."

And yet, in a game that couldn't possibly have prevented the existence of extraction capers, Arc Raiders has seen 82.5% of its players return alongside a stranger. It's baffling to think about, and yet, after eighty hours in the game, I can confidently say that it's also easy. If you're playing solos in Arc Raiders, there's every chance that at least 50% of your encounters with other players, if not vastly more, will be friendly, and I'm glad to be a part of the side of the player base that believes in talking things out before mag-dumping into other human players.

The ARC threat is the great equalizer

In Arc Raiders, players band together for "the greater good"

What makes Arc Raiders' kindness so fascinating to me is that it exists in spite of how terrifying the ARC are. These things aren't your standard video game enemies. They're built on machine-learning locomotion models, and are some of the most advanced enemy tech we've seen in years. This threat of the ARC is so overwhelming, so often, and so unpredictable, too, that players instinctively form temporary ceasefires. Nobody wants to get vaporized mid-duel because a Clanker decided to third-party the fight.

At the same time, PvP is completely justified in this game, and that's exactly why this game works so well. The tension of "I hope this guy is chill" versus "I hope this guy isn't pretending to be chill" is the heartbeat of every run. Even the friendliest-sounding strangers have stabbed me in the back, and that continues to be the thrill of this game. It's that uncertainty, after all, that makes all your loot in your backpack mean something, and makes every single extraction feel earned and hard-fought. It's the ARC machines that push you toward cooperation with other players, but it's the human element that keeps you on edge in every game.

The human element is what makes Arc Raiders so special

Arc Raiders thrives through so many elements: real tension in firefights, and even more so when fragile bonds of trust are formed between strangers. And yet, it's so incredibly heartwarming to see how most of the player base have been avoiding shooting other players, banding together to take down bigger ARC enemies, and even forming a strong online community where everyone only wants to preach and practice peace.

When you're Topside, cooperation feels natural, betrayal feels meaningful, and every encounter becomes a story worth telling. And if you run into a raider playing the flute, you must drop everything to protect that person with your life.