I had a good time playing Arc Raiders at a preview event. So, why don’t I feel like playing it again at launch?
Arc Raiders is the latest game attempting to stand out in the extraction shooter space. This shooter genre is very hardcore, tasking players with safely finding valuable loot across large levels and extracting before they can be killed. If players do die on a mission, they lose almost everything equipped to their character. It’s a high-risk, high-reward that developers are treating as the next battle royale-like craze. Now, the developers of The Finals, Embark Studios, are entering into the space with Arc Raiders, a game they reworked to become an extraction shooter.
In 2025 alone, Exoborne, Marathon, Steel Hunters, and more are competing to become the next big thing. While I’ve enjoyed my time with Arc Raiders just as much as I’ve enjoyed my time with those other titles, I’m not sure if any of the extraction shooters I mentioned are compelling enough to not only take players away from genre stalwarts like Hunt: Showdown and Escape from Tarkov, but go mainstream as well.
At a preview event I attended, Arc Raiders was described as a post-post-apocalyptic shooter. People live in underground cities like Speranza, which serves as the main menu hub, while Raiders venture out to the surface to gather lucrative crafting materials and weapons. Arc machines dot the surface and pose a threat to players, though, as do other Raiders. In practice, the core gameplay loop of Arc Raiders closely hews to genre clichés: explore, gather loot, extract, and avoid dying.
Last year, I highlighted how Arc Raiders had changed a lot since its reveal at The Game Awards 2021, and my first hands-on with the game reinforced that notion. While Arc Raiders‘ first trailer showed lots of bombastic firefights against large robots, the extraction shooter version of the game is much slower-paced. Working with my teammates, I had to methodically decide which Arcs and what other players to take on, as one encounter with minimal shots fired could go very wrong with me. There are also giant Arcs to take down, but with my early-game gear, that was an instant death sentence.
Moment to moment, Arc Raiders is an entertaining shooter. The former Battlefield developers at Embark know how to make gunplay feel gratifying. Each weapon has a unique feel, and there’s plenty of room for customization with attachments, which I could discover while exploring. The art direction and core premise of Arc Raiders are pulpy and retro-futuristic in a way I enjoy, and I appreciated how Arc Raiders provides a lot of structure for players with missions to complete and specific resources to track, so players could enhance and maximize their capabilities while in Speranza.
When it comes to the baseline bar a new extraction shooter needs to meet, Arc Raiders passes it swimmingly. But as I continued to play Arc Raiders across this preview event, I came to a realization: I don’t like extraction shooters that much, and many of the current ones on offer don’t have the unique hooks needed to stand out and make a splash in the live service space.
A core problem with extraction shooters is that the biggest feelings I ever get when playing them are feelings of frustration when I die, not satisfaction when I find something. No moment in an extraction shooter will ever match when I feel when getting a victory royale in a game like Fortnite. Basing your entire game’s structure around being able to lose what you obtain just isn’t appealing from a time investment standpoint. Sure, I can slowly trot around for a few rounds without engaging with anyone to build up my loot stockpile, but there are plenty of other shooters I can boot up and instantly have more fun instead.
Because I’m not particularly fond of that core, I’m looking for extraction shooters that put a distinct twist on the formula. And unfortunately, many of these new ones are failing to do that. Exoborne gets the closest with its weather systems and grappling hook, but for games like Marathon and Arc Raiders, their developers are hoping that world and art direction become the main selling points. But gameplay is king, and if an extraction shooter isn’t offering that many new ideas from that standpoint, why should I play it over Hunt: Showdown or Escape from Tarkov?
In 2025, a live service multiplayer game needs to do a lot more than that to attract my attention. Arc Raiders plays well, but nowadays, new multiplayer games need to feel quite distinct to stand out from the crowd. Arc Raiders was reworked to more intentionally feel like an Escape from Tarkov, though, and I wish there were some more creative gameplay ideas and twists at play. Maybe I’ll be proven wrong and Arc Raiders becomes the new baseline for the extraction shooter genre, but at this point, I’m looking for more than just a baseline to be hit.
Tech Test 2 for Arc Raiders will take place between April 30 and May 4. A full release for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S is slated for sometime later this year.
