Arc Raiders players are running into wildly different behavior depending on the platform and it’s not subtle. In a small but detailed experiment, two players spent a week each in PS5-only and PC-only matchmaking, logging over 400 encounters. What they found was a surprisingly wide gulf in how players treat each other especially when crossplay is disabled.
Arc Raiders lobbies show more hostility on PS5
One of the players stuck to PS5, clocking 84 solo rounds and running into 237 other players. Instead of making allies, though, he mostly got shot at. Over 40% of players opened fire the moment they saw him. Another 58 pretended to team up only to backstab later. Even neutral players often turned aggressive at the extraction point. It got bad enough that he started playing like a ghost, avoiding contact entirely, just to stay alive.
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PC Arc Raiders players were more likely to cooperate
Meanwhile, the PC player’s week was far less brutal. Out of 172 encounters, 98 players offered luck or waved back. A handful even stuck around to extract together. While shoot-on-sight wasn’t gone, 47 players still fired first it wasn’t the default. More importantly, attempts to talk or trade were usually met with some level of trust. It wasn’t paradise, but it felt like players were more willing to treat the game as a sandbox, not a free-for-all.
The experiment setup was simple, but telling
The duo didn’t overcomplicate things. They each dropped their weapons, walked into the unknown, and kept notes. By the end, they’d tracked everything:
- Number of encounters
- Number of shoot-on-sight incidents
- Friendly gestures like waving or chatting
- Backstabs during or after team-ups
- Successful co-op extractions
These numbers weren’t perfect or scientific, but they showed a real pattern: PC lobbies leaned more friendly, PS5 ones more ruthless.
Arc Raiders feels like a different game on each platform
Of course, this wasn’t a large-scale study just two players running parallel tests for a week. Still, the contrast was sharp enough to change how they played. On PS5, caution turned into paranoia. On PC, even a little goodwill went a long way. The gap made it feel like Arc Raiders had two personalities, depending on where you logged in.
Same game, different vibes
It’s the same desert, the same loot, the same objective but how you experience Arc Raiders might depend entirely on the controller in your hand. For these two players, trust was harder to come by on PS5. On PC, it wasn’t always safe but it was possible.
