It seems like the following is indeed interesting, yet I’ve never ever experienced Arc Raiders myself! Have you? ^^
But often, players are just talking. A YouTube video called The Humans of Arc Raiders, inspired by the photographer who interviews strangers in New York City, includes conversations with randomly encountered players. They talk about family struggles, work lives, depression, autism and, in one case, a lung collapse. In one conversation, a heavily armed player in green armour named Poopy candidly asks another raider: "What’s it like having kids, dude?”
When I first jumped into Arc Raiders, I found a dichotomy on the topside, where birds sing and plants thrive among the carcasses of downed machines. The more I wandered around this 1970s-style retro-future setting, the more I bumped into other humans, many of whom offered help, such as medical supplies. Mostly we snuck around and battled robots together. It was tense at times, sometimes scary, but often relaxing.
In one session, I encountered another player with a British accent who was also new to the game. "Have you been killed by another person yet?” he asked me, as we explored a burst concrete dam complex. "Because every person I’ve met has been friendly,” he added. “No one kills each other.”
Source [web-archive]
Hell, I wish more games just had humanity. It might be due to me being antiwar, but when playing MMOs (whose MO is pretty much always ‘kill each other’ PVP) I wish folk were not so quick to kill, especially not when the kill isn’t imperative. Face it, some of the best ever moments in gaming are when folk have the option to kill each other and dont. A shred of humanism.
Universal signs in COD existed to plead for mercy, such as switching to a knife and looking away. In Black Ops II there’s a rave room in a map and several players spent a minute bobbing their characters around until someone else came and mowed the other team down. One time in Battlefield I spent the majority of a game (no mic mind you) chilling on a roof with half a dozen players from two teams. I came to multiplayer FPS games for the combat, stayed for the randoms I met.