ARC Raiders usually prides itself on fast queues and near-instant drops, which is why the sudden spike in long matchmaking times has caught so many players off guard. Over the past few hours, solo, duo, and trio players alike have been stuck staring at the screen for minutes on end when ARC Raiders is taking forever to matchmake, and sometimes only to spawn late into an already-progressed raid or enter the wrong match server. This isn’t normal behavior for ARC Raiders, and it’s happening for a reason.
ARC Raiders Matchmaking is Taking Much Longer Than Usual
The most obvious change players faced is the raw queue time. ARC Raiders normally takes 10–30 seconds to matchmake you with the lobby, but the few seconds have now been stretched into minutes for all modes. Solo players have to wait for three to five minutes, while duos and trios are seeing ARC Raiders queue times push past seven or eight minutes on some maps.
In extreme cases, players have to wait even longer, cancel and re-queue repeatedly to find a match. The frustration with long queue times in ARC Raiders is mostly because people get tired of waiting, and then the delays mostly end up with late spawns or mismatched lobbies. There have been reports from NA, EU, console, and PC players, so it’s the case on all platforms, and rules out the local connection issues.
Anybody else getting long matchmaking queues?
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If you matchmake solo, you might join duo or trio raids and spawn 10–15 minutes already into a match, which puts you at a big disadvantage when other Raiders are fully geared and ready to shoot you down. The possible reason is that the matchmaking system struggles to sort players due to backend stress. When queues stall, the system likely loosens its rules and fills open slots in ongoing raids instead of waiting to create a fresh lobby. That’s why some solo players only realize they’re not in a solo run after being pushed by squads.
ARC Raiders has recently won Best Multiplayer Game of the Year at The Game Awards and has hundreds of thousands of concurrent players. If the game were really struggling to find players, matchmaking would be forever slow, not erratic. What’s happening right now is unstable behavior: fast queues one moment, then suddenly ARC Raiders take ages to match the next.
Server Load and Backend Changes are the Real Culprits
The most likely explanation is a combination of server strain and backend changes colliding at the worst possible time. Players are currently very busy grinding for the upcoming Expedition Project, so traffic has spiked. Right now, all players are scrambling to collect as much loot as they can before the optional progress wipe. Embark Studios has admitted there’s a problem on their side, but they are quiet about what’s actually wrong or when the fix will arrive. Since launch, whenever ARC Raiders face overall matchmaking problems, the developers usually patch up the issues very quickly once the reason is figured out.
Some players have figured out a temporary workaround: if you cancel matchmaking after waiting about 30 to 60 seconds and then try again, you can enter the match server. Currently, your matchmaking request probably sits idle and won’t progress, but when you re-queue, it sends a fresh request, so if the servers stabilize for a moment, you can get right in. Solo Raiders have it even tougher. The matchmaking rules for single-player lobbies are strict, so solos remain stuck with long waits. When these requirements loosen under pressure, they are usually the first to get tossed into mixed groups or dropped into ongoing raids.
