China's ARC Raiders Has the PvE Mode Fans Begged For

Since ARC Raiders launched in October 2025, one request has echoed louder than almost any other across its community: give us a proper PvE mode. Embark Studios' extraction shooter earned an 87 Top Critic Average on OpenCritic, won Best Multiplayer at The Game Awards, and has sold over 14 million copies. But a significant chunk of its playerbase has never been fully comfortable with the game's PvP-first design. They want to fight the ARCs, not each other.

Turns out, that mode already exists. It's just locked behind a regional wall.

Rebellion Incident

The Chinese version of ARC Raiders, which launched its first round of testing recently, includes a map condition called Rebellion Incident. As highlighted by user Babao on X, the mode defaults all players to a friendly state. Nobody can damage anyone else unless they deliberately choose to "rebel," at which point the entire lobby is alerted and the traitor is marked with a red icon on the compass and map. It's opt-in PvP layered on top of what is, by default, a cooperative PvE experience.

This isn't some half-baked experiment either. China's regulatory environment essentially demands it. The country has strict stances on non-consensual PvP, requiring games to let players opt into hostile encounters rather than forcing them. So Embark's Chinese partners built a framework where the extraction loop stays intact, but the default threat comes from ARCs, not other squads. Players who want that extra edge can flag themselves as hostile, but everyone else gets to focus on looting and fighting AI.

I've spent enough time in extraction shooters to know how polarising forced PvP can be. Some players live for the tension of not knowing if the squad around the corner is friendly. Others just want to fight the cool robots with their friends without getting domed by a camping player on extract. Rebellion Incident sounds like it threads that needle better than anything the global build currently offers, and it's sitting in a region-exclusive version while the rest of the world asks for exactly this feature is frustrating.

There's a second exclusive mode too. Double Queen (sometimes translated as Double King or Dual Boss) drops both a Queen and a Matriarch onto the same map simultaneously, cranking up the AI threat and pushing players toward cooperation. Between the two modes, the Chinese build is running what amounts to a PvE-focused alternative version of ARC Raiders that the global community can only read about.

More Than Cosmetics

The region-exclusive differences don't stop at modes. Players on Reddit and social media have spotted cosmetics that only exist in the Chinese build, including a Full River Red skin for the Anvil, a Lemon Battery attachment for the Renegade, and a retro space suit with Mickey Mouse ears. Some of these look great, but as community members have pointed out, they likely exist because of the partnership with Tencent, which typically adds its own monetisation layer for the Chinese market. Several players in global forums have said they're fine skipping exclusive cosmetics if it means avoiding additional microtransaction pressure.

Fair enough on the skins. Cosmetics tied to a regional publishing deal are one thing. But a PvE mode that changes how the game plays? That's a different conversation entirely from whether you can buy a lemon-themed gun skin.

Some Chinese users are reportedly describing Rebellion Incident as a "low-difficulty mode" since ARCs are easier to deal with than human opponents. I'd argue that's a tuning problem, not a design problem. Crank up the ARC aggression, add more elite spawns, and you've got a co-op extraction experience that could pull in players who bounced off the game's PvP focus months ago.

Embark hasn't said anything publicly about bringing Rebellion Incident or Double Queen to the global version. The studio just swept three awards at the Nordic Game Awards 2026 on May 29, including Nordic Game of the Year, and has every reason to keep expanding the game's appeal. A PvE mode that already works in one region feels like low-hanging fruit for a game that's otherwise riding high. ARC Raiders' Chinese build is, right now, running the version of the game that a vocal portion of 14 million players have been asking for since day one.