Yes. You can play every Isolated raid alone and never see another player. You can queue Open raids alone and choose whether the game matches you against squads or other solos. Both work today.
What nobody tells you is that "solo" means two different things on the Missions Terminal, and one of them has no matchmaking at all. Get that wrong and you spawn into Shegolskoe with two strangers you never asked for, or into Downtown with a trio that did. Here is what each setting actually does, what a death costs when nobody can carry your kit out, and which raids to learn alone first. Everything below was checked in the game on builds 0.4.0.148 and 0.4.0.156 (25 and 27 September 2026).
The short answer
Gaijin's FAQ asks the question outright: "Can I play only solo PvE or cooperative PvE and avoid fighting other players?" The answer: "Yes. We designed the game so that you can choose whichever format you are most comfortable with." The Steam page puts it in one line: "Go solo or team up in small squads to venture into quantum-unstable zones in PvPvE and PvE raids."
Squads are three at most, and every raid has an Isolated Raid (PvE) tab and an Open Raid tab. Which tab you pick decides what solo means:
- Isolated, solo: you deploy alone into a zone with creatures, anomalies and nothing else. No squads, no strangers, no auto-fill. Our PvE-only guide has the full list of raids that offer it.
- Open, solo: you deploy alone into a zone shared with other players. One setting decides who those players are, and one toggle decides whether the game hands you teammates you didn't ask for.
The FAQ also admits that solo is the harder way to play. It is. The rest of this guide is how much harder, and what to do about it.
Solo in an Isolated raid: nobody else, by design
Hover the Isolated tab and the game's own description is the whole rule:
"Only you (or your group) can enter the raid. No interference from other players. Contracts and quests can be completed as usual."
Look at what's missing from that panel: no Matchmaking mode, no Auto-fill squad. Isolated raids don't matchmake. Your squad is whoever you invite into the two empty seats, or nobody.
That cuts both ways. Nobody third-parties you while you loot a building. Nobody covers the stairwell while you do it.
Two things worth knowing. Raids with variants have a Raid variant selector under the squad buttons, with a Rotation toggle beside it since 0.4.0.156: step through the variants with the arrows, or leave Rotation on. And Isolated raids never wait on a schedule. Gaijin's September developer Q&A says it plainly: "All existing Isolated Raids, including their variants, can be played anytime."
Solo in an Open raid: the two controls that matter
Select Open Raid and two controls appear between the squad seats and the deploy button. They are the whole of solo play in PvPvE.
Matchmaking mode. The launch build's tooltip explains it better than any wiki:
"Choose which matchmaking mode to use: Solo, Squad, or Any. Selecting only solo or only squads will match you against the same type, but may increase matchmaking time."
Set it to Solo and you share the zone with other solos and no pre-made squads, at the cost of a longer queue. When we recorded on 25 September it read Any, and Any is the setting that puts a lone operative in with trios. Check it before every deploy.
Auto-fill squad. On, and matchmaking fills your two empty seats with strangers. Off, and you go in alone, whatever mode you chose. If you queued alone in launch week and never got teammates, that was a bug: the 24 September patch, The Fundamental Protocol, lists "Restored squad auto-fill for solo-queued players."
Two smaller things. Server, top right of the terminal, is where you pick the regions to search; ours read North America, Europe, East Asia on 27 September, and a solo queue on a narrow region is where you'll feel that choice. And Open raids run on a schedule: an hourglass beside the crossed swords means the raid is live, a circular arrow means it's closed and when it's back.
Fast Raid Search
It sits at the top of the raid list, and it exists for you. From the developer Q&A: "The update added the ability to search for multiple raids when playing solo." Queue several raids at once and take whichever fills first, instead of watching one raid's countdown.
Asked whether groups get it too, Gaijin said: "After reviewing the results from the solo version, we will indeed then expand this feature's capabilities for faster raid searches." For now it's a solo feature, and on Open raids it's the difference between playing and waiting.
What solo costs you
The game doesn't scale down for one person. What changes is who pays for mistakes.
- Every death is total. Nobody carries your kit out. Container first, gear set saved, best find in the container the moment you touch it. Our test Vepr kit cost ₳4,840 to replace, and Tier III chronogenes burn a charge on top. Or risk nothing: pick Rented equipment at the Loadout check, and you keep whatever you extract.
- Every creature is yours. The most-replied thread on the Steam forums is a plea to reduce the monsters, and solo is where you find out why. Since 0.4.0.156 the big ones at least pay: 3 to 4 times from Shy Girls and about 10 times from Alpha Mimics and Alpha Flowermen. Our monsters guide covers how to beat each one.
- Open halves your odds. Shegolskoe went from 76% extracted on Isolated to 36% on Open, Factory from 82% to 36%. Squad numbers, so treat them as a ceiling.
- Two daily tiers need Open. Qualified Field Work and High-Value Operations are padlocked in Isolated. Priority Raid and Baseline Compliance count fine.
The numbers behind the first bullet are in the Beginner's Guide.
Which raids to solo first
Extraction rates from the Missions Terminal on the morning of 25 September, Isolated mode. They move through the day, so read them as a ranking.
| Raid | Isolated extraction rate | Why start here |
|---|---|---|
| Military Base: Silent Observers | 85% | The easiest raid we saw, and Active Matter Collection is a simple task |
| Factory | 82% | A Beta gate, and the Hive variant is selectable |
| Park | 82% | Where the Dalniy story case starts |
| Shegolskoe | 76% | Your first map, and a Beta gate |
| Airport | 76% | The third Beta gate, in a different region |
| Ozernoe | 76% | Place Device: a task, not a fight |
The Monolith's Beta level wants one extraction each from Shegolskoe, Factory and Airport. All three have an Isolated mode, so nothing in the early ladder needs a squad.
Leave two alone until you're sure: Escape from Dogorsk (Isolated only, 11%) and Downtown: Collapse (Isolated only, 3%). They're objective raids, not loot runs, and the Escape from Dogorsk map shows why: creature markers everywhere and one extraction. Every raid's tasks, modes and rates are in the Raid Guide.
A solo loadout that survives being wrong
You don't need the Deluxe arsenal to solo. You need a kit you can afford to lose and a plan for the exit.
- The safe container, before any weapon. Small, Medium or Large on the Shop's Special tab, for Crystallised Active Matter.
- A kit you can rebuy in one click. Alpha grants ₳10,000; an MP5, an M9 and a knife come to about ₳5,000 and leave the rest for plates, ammo and meds.
- Rented equipment for learning a map. Pick it at the Loadout check and you deploy in borrowed kit, so a death costs you nothing and anything you extract is still yours. It's the cheapest way to learn where the exits are.
- Plates where you get hit. Health is six pools, not one bar, and your sleeve sets which parts take a plate. A starting sleeve is fine for Isolated; the layouts are in our Body Sleeves guide.
- Two extraction points, known before you deploy. The green running figure on the pre-deploy map. The last five minutes are where solo players die.
Cross-play and consoles
Isolated raids support squads across PC and console with no opt-in. For Open raids, consoles choose where to search: your own platform, consoles only, or any platform. Smallest pool or shortest queue, your call.
When solo stops being the point
Active Matter is built for three, and every solo player hits the week where the problem isn't the game, it's the two empty seats. Isolated won't fill them. Open fills them with whoever's in the queue.
If you'd rather fill one with someone who already knows where the extraction is, that's what our Squad Carry below is: a pro on their own account, in your squad, for the hours you book, Isolated or Open. Stated once, because it's true of every paid service in this game: Gaijin's EULA (§3.2.6) bans paid "combat services," so this is against the rules. What it avoids is account sharing, because nobody logs in as you. The full reasoning is in Active Matter Boosting Explained.
Solo questions
Does the game give me random teammates? Only in Open raids, and only with Auto-fill squad on. Isolated raids have no matchmaking; your squad is whoever you invite.
Will I be matched against squads when I'm solo? With Matchmaking mode on Any, yes. Set it to Solo and you're matched against other solos, with a longer queue.
Can I progress the Monolith solo? The gates are extractions, and the early ones (Shegolskoe, Factory, Airport) all have Isolated modes. Solo just makes each extraction harder to get.
Do I need Isolated Raid Passes to play solo PvE? No. There are none in the game as of 0.4.0.156; the Shop doesn't sell them and the deploy panel doesn't count them. Isolated raids are unlimited.