Extraction shooters tend to attract a pretty hardcore crowd bent on dominating the players around them, but a curious note has arisen around Arc Raiders: if you play solo, it actually seems to be a pretty chill time. Sure, group games do tend to result in wanton murder, but solo players are reporting a community that's actually willing to be helpful and engage in a little cooperation with their fellow raiders.

"Going solo - I fully expected it to be a free for all," as Reddit user iReaddit-KRTORR writes. "Kill or be killed. All for one. But I've been largely surprised at how chill and helpful people are in solo. People largely don't want to lose their gear needlessly and that is incentivizing passive play. Don’t get me wrong, I've still been KOed, betrayed, shot on sight, killed at the extraction, etc but that's the game. And not being 100% certain is exciting too. This game is awesome."

"I've been running up and asking people where things are for quests and they'll even take me there like I can’t find the eggs in the supermarket," GreggsAficionado says in response.

The comments seem to be more or less universally aligned: squad play is a bloodbath, but solos will tend to connect you with players willing to engage in the social side of the game a little more.

My experience so far with other players from r/ArcRaiders

"The chill solo community gives me big Sea of Thieves vibes when that first launched and everyone was pretty chill with each other," PClueless says, and that idea has very much got me interested. I've never been interested in extraction shooters, but I had a brief obsession with Sea of Thieves, and my most delightful memories of that game are those of meeting other players who didn't want to just straight-up murder me. (Shout out to that one guy who did the fake Australian accent and demanded to see my "papers" – I still think about you sometimes, bud.)

Of course, as the years wore on, Sea of Thieves devolved more and more into a PvP free-for-all where most players are out for blood, and the same thing may eventually happen to Arc Raiders. But for now, if you hop into the solo queue, you might just find a more chill type of online multiplayer experience than you're used to.

If you need a little extra help, these are the best skills to choose first in Arc Raiders.