ARC Raiders has made a quiet but useful change to one of its strangest live-service problems: the game now tracks your Solo, Duo and Trio playstyles separately.
The change arrived with Update 1.36.0, which is live now across PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. Embark says the new system was one of the most requested matchmaking features from a survey published in May, after players pushed back on how the extraction shooter's playstyle-based matchmaking handled different squad sizes.
Before this update, a player's behavior across Solo, Duo and Trio rounds fed into the same broad matchmaking profile. That could make the system feel off if someone played peacefully while alone but hunted other squads with friends, or if a normally aggressive player used solo runs to scavenge and avoid trouble.
Embark says that overlap is gone. ARC Raiders now tracks each queue on its own, so a player can be matched according to their usual Solo behavior in Solo rounds, their Duo behavior in Duo rounds and their Trio behavior in Trio rounds.
Why the matchmaking tweak helps
ARC Raiders' matchmaking is not a simple friendly-versus-hostile switch. In a May explanation of the system, Embark said it looks at patterns over time and tries to place players closer to others with similar playstyles, while keeping the surface unpredictable enough for betrayals, rescues and messy PvPvE encounters to still happen.
The studio also admitted two problems with the previous model. Defending yourself could be read too much like starting a fight, and low-activity rounds could carry too much weight in a player's history. Those issues were addressed before Update 1.36.0, but the squad-size split tackles a different frustration: players do not always behave the same way when alone as they do with a full group.
That makes this patch more interesting than a routine matchmaking note. ARC Raiders is trying to preserve its uneasy social tension without letting one queue poison another. A solo player who mostly quests, farms materials or avoids PvP should not have that style dragged around by weekend Trio sessions where everyone is looking for fights.
Update 1.36.0 adds more than matchmaking
The same patch also starts Expedition 4 and Trials Season 5, adds a crossover with THE FINALS and redesigns parts of the store. From July 9 at 3pm CEST until July 30 at 3pm CEST, players can complete Contracts in THE FINALS to unlock the Azimuth outfit and Archeologist backpack bundle in ARC Raiders. Embark says the promotion will later flip, letting players earn the Azimuth bundle in THE FINALS by playing ARC Raiders.
Embark also used the update to recap fair-play work. The studio says Denuvo Anti-Cheat is now enforced for all players after its earlier rollout, following a period where ARC Raiders was testing new kernel-level anti-cheat tools. Update 1.36.0 also says recent item-duplication exploits have been fixed and that the team is looking at expanding its experimental No Free Loadout requirement to more map conditions.
There are still some rough edges. Embark lists lower-than-usual FPS for some PC players and crashes affecting some Xbox players, particularly on Xbox Series S, among the known issues it is investigating. The matchmaking change is live now, so players should start seeing separate Solo, Duo and Trio behavior profiles as they keep raiding.