Arc Raiders Matchmaking Explained: Gear Score vs Party Size

Arc Raiders launched into early access with a familiar controversy for competitive games: players worried that some hidden gear score or loot-based matchmaking system was rigging their lobbies. After a wave of debate, the developers stepped in to clarify how matchmaking actually works. According to Embark Studios, the system is currently focused on party size—not gear level.

This article breaks down what the devs have said, why the rumors started, how party-size matchmaking affects solo and squad players, and what might change in the future. It is based on reporting from gaming outlets and official communications from the studio, but reorganized and expanded to give you a clearer, more systematic overview.

What Is Arc Raiders and Why Matchmaking Matters

Arc Raiders is a third-person extraction shooter where players drop into large environments, scavenge for loot, fight both AI and other players, and attempt to extract with valuable gear. Because you keep what you escape with (and lose what you bring and fail to save), matchmaking directly affects how fair and rewarding each round feels.

In a game where:

• High-tier weapons and armor provide a tangible edge, and
• Team coordination can overwhelm solo players,

players are understandably sensitive to any perceived imbalance. That’s why the idea of hidden gear score matchmaking—or its absence—has become such a hot topic.

How Gear or Loot Score Matchmaking Would Typically Work

To understand the controversy, it helps to define what people mean by gear-based matchmaking or gear score in this context.

Basic idea of a gear score system

In many online games, a gear score is a numeric value that summarizes the strength or value of your equipment. Typical implementations:

• Assign a power rating or value to each item (weapon, armor, gadgets).
• Combine those ratings into a single number representing your build.
• Use this number to group players into brackets (for example, 0–1000, 1000–2000, etc.).

In a strictly gear-based system, heavy investment in high-tier gear would cause you to face similarly equipped opponents. Conversely, if you go in with a low or free kit, you’d expect to match mostly with other lightly geared players.

Why players suspect hidden gear matchmaking

Rumors about secret algorithms are common in competitive games. Research on multiplayer matchmaking notes that players often attribute streaks of wins or losses to opaque systems rather than randomness or natural variance in skill and gear distribution.¹ In extraction titles, this suspicion is amplified because:

• Losses feel costly in terms of time and resources.
• High-value extracts can feel too easy or too hard depending on the lobby.
• Players often compare anecdotal experiences across different gear setups.

Arc Raiders is no exception. Some players reported feeling like “the game knew” when they brought powerful gear and responded with harder lobbies. Others swore the opposite.

What the Arc Raiders Developers Actually Said

In response to community debates, Embark Studios issued a clear statement. The key points, as summarized by multiple outlets and discussions referencing the official comment, are:

• The team had previously evaluated gear- or loot-based matchmaking and other principles.
• Right now, the live system does not use gear score to match players.
• The primary focus is splitting solo players from squads to keep the playing field as fair as possible.
• The studio will continue monitoring matchmaking performance and may revisit different approaches after launch.

In other words, the developers acknowledge that gear-based matchmaking has been considered at the design level, but they emphasize that it is not currently active in the live game. The only major dimension the system is using in a structured way is party size.

Party Size as the Core Matchmaking Axis

Instead of sorting players by gear, Arc Raiders is currently organizing lobbies primarily around whether you join alone or with friends. That choice—solo or squad—has enormous impact on both power and social dynamics, so aligning matchmaking around it is a logical design decision.

Solo vs squad: why the split matters

Solo players are inherently disadvantaged against coordinated groups. Game design research on cooperative vs solo play shows that teamwork often yields significantly higher effectiveness in combat, especially when communication and role specialization are involved.² In extraction shooters, that’s even more pronounced: squads can cover multiple angles, share resources, and revive one another.

To counter those structural advantages, Embark’s matchmaking aims to:

• Put solo players primarily in lobbies of other solos.
• Match full squads against other groups of similar size where possible.
• Use this split as the main way to maintain fairness rather than relying on gear or skill ratings.

How different party sizes fit into the system

Although exact implementation details can change over time, community analysis and dev commentary suggest something like the following behavior:

In this framework, the system’s first question is “How many people are in your party?” rather than “How powerful is your gear?” or “What is your win rate?”.

Why There Is No Gear-Based Matchmaking Right Now

The developers’ decision to not enable gear score matchmaking at launch is not arbitrary. It reflects trade-offs that many online titles face while balancing fairness, queue times, and player perception.

Pros and cons of gear-based systems

From a design perspective, gear-based matchmaking has both potential benefits and drawbacks:

• Pros
  • Prevents heavily geared veterans from farming brand-new players too easily.
  • Encourages low-risk runs with free kits by giving those players less punishing lobbies.
  • Makes power progression feel smoother because opponents grow stronger alongside you.
• Cons
  • Can make high-tier gear feel less rewarding if it only leads to harder games.
  • Encourages players to “sandbag” their loadouts to force easier lobbies.
  • Increases system complexity and can spark more conspiracy theories about hidden rules.

Research on matchmaking in competitive games notes that more complex systems often require more player communication and transparency to avoid backlash.¹ At early access launch, Embark appears to have chosen simplicity and clarity over a more layered approach.

Launch priorities: fairness vs complexity

At launch, games typically prioritize:

• Fast queue times.
• Stable servers and reliable connections.
• Clear, explainable systems that are easy for players to understand.

By focusing on a simple solo vs squad split and avoiding extra gear or skill constraints, Arc Raiders reduces the risk of long queues and opaque behavior. It also keeps the conversation in the community more grounded: if you feel a lobby is unfair, the main variables are visible—party size and player decisions—not hidden numeric scores.

What About Skill-Based Matchmaking?

Alongside gear score, players often ask whether there is skill-based matchmaking (SBMM)—systems that group players by performance metrics like win rate or kill/death ratio. While Arc Raiders is primarily focused on extraction and looting rather than traditional ranked arena play, similar questions arise.

Public statements and community summaries referencing Embark’s comments indicate that:

• There is no explicit SBMM system similar to ranked shooters in place.
• Matchmaking does not appear to track win rate or K/D to sort players into tiers.
• The main axis remains party size, with basic session-level constraints like region and connection quality.

Academic analysis of skill-based systems suggests they can reduce frustration for weaker players but often introduce perceived “sweaty” lobbies for veterans and complicate casual play.³ Embark’s early-access approach appears to favor a more organic environment where skill disparities are moderated mainly by social grouping (solo vs squad) rather than numeric ranking.

How This Affects Your Experience as a Player

With this matchmaking philosophy in mind, you can make better decisions about how you queue and what gear you bring.

If you mostly play solo

As a solo player, you benefit directly from the focus on splitting solo and squad queues:

• You will more often face other solos, reducing run-ins with highly coordinated teams.
• Your gear choices won’t push you into higher-tier lobbies—you can experiment without worrying about a hidden gear threshold.
• When you do encounter squads (for example, when the system relaxes rules to maintain queue times), it should be the exception rather than the norm.

If you queue with friends as a squad

For squads, the design philosophy is different:

• You should expect to face other organized groups with similar party sizes.
• Your power level comes more from coordination and team play than from being under- or over-geared compared to solos.
• The absence of gear-based matchmaking means your strongest kits may dominate some lobbies—but you’ll also confront equally prepared teams.

That structure aligns with how other team-centric shooters organize casual or unranked play, where social grouping is often the main differentiator.

Future Directions: Could Gear Score Matchmaking Arrive Later?

The developers have emphasized that their current focus is on the solo vs squad split, but they’ve also left the door open to future changes. That’s consistent with how live service titles and early access games generally evolve: systems are updated based on data, player feedback, and long-term engagement goals.⁴

Signals Embark might watch

If the team revisits gear or skill-based matchmaking, it will likely be in response to data such as:

• High churn or frustration among new players getting stomped by heavily geared veterans.
• Evidence that solos or light-gear players are leaving matches at higher rates.
• Community feedback showing that high-tier players actually want more balanced power-based lobbies.

Live balancing tends to be incremental: developers experiment with small adjustments, evaluate their impact, and iterate, rather than flipping radical switches all at once.

Possible future matchmaking models

If Arc Raiders adds more complexity later, some plausible models include:

• Soft gear weighting: Gear score influences match selection slightly, but party size and queue time still dominate.
• Mode-specific rules: A dedicated “ranked” or “hardcore” playlist with tighter gear or skill bands, while casual queues remain simple.
• Event-based constraints: Limited-time events where everyone is normalized to similar gear or where gear brackets are explicitly defined.

Any of these paths would require careful communication to avoid reigniting confusion, which is why the current message from the devs aims at being as straightforward as possible.

Practical Tips for Playing Around Current Matchmaking

Given what we know about the system today, here are some practical ways to adapt:

• Choose your party type deliberately: Decide if you want a solo-focused experience or if you’re ready for squad-vs-squad intensity. That choice matters more than your gear in determining lobby feel.
• Experiment with gear without fear of hidden penalties: Since matchmaking isn’t based on loadout power, use early access as a sandbox to test different weapons and kits.
• Don’t overread small streaks: A few tough or easy games in a row don’t necessarily indicate a secret gear score system—natural variance, map flow, and player behavior can explain a lot.
• Provide constructive feedback: If you feel solos are being thrown into squads too often, or that certain queue types are unfair, detailed feedback in official channels is more valuable now than speculation.

Frequently Asked Questions About Arc Raiders Matchmaking