Another extraction shooter? Yawn. But after our first few rounds, it turns out that Arc Raiders is definitely worth a second look.
- Gut feeling: These days, a new extraction shooter is announced every week, and it’s getting hard to tell them apart.
- Fact: The genre is in a deep crisis, with numerous projects such as Hyenas, The Division: Heartland, The Cycle, and Level Zero: Extraction now canceled.
Both facts and perceived truths do not exactly paint a rosy picture for upcoming titles such as Marathon, Exborne, and the like.
Nevertheless, Arc Raiders surprised us positively when we played it. Could this be the genre’s breakthrough?
Who is behind Arc Raiders?
Arc Raiders is the second game from Swedish development studio Embark, which was founded in Stockholm in 2018 by Patrick Söderlund, Robert Runesson, Magnus Nordin, Johan Andersson, and several other veterans from Battlefield developer DICE. The studio has around 300 to 400 employees and is owned by gaming company Nexon. Embark’s first game is The Finals.
Table of Contents
Fallout meets Terminator
Arc Raiders is set in a post-apocalyptic sci-fi world. So-called Arc machines have overrun and largely wiped out the Earth, with only a few human colonies remaining underground. One of these is the city of Speranza, from where we set out as raiders into the wasteland to complete missions for traders and collect loot.
On the surface, a battle for survival rages against enemy players and deadly machine creatures. Typical Extraction: If we die, all our equipment is lost, and only those who make it back alive to one of the shafts underground get to keep their loot.
The apocalyptic world of Arc Raiders is extremely atmospheric. As we comb through foggy swamps, dense forests, rusty wrecks, and gloomy laboratories in search of useful items, we listen intently for gunshots or the metallic scurrying of deadly arc spiders, which like to hide on ceilings or in dark corners.
We carefully avoid the beams of light cast by a patrolling arc wasp drone, as the noise of battle will almost inevitably attract more enemies. Blazing fires bathe abandoned warehouses in ghostly light.
The rise of a flare reveals the position of a raider who has just been killed and sends an unmistakeable message: danger lurks here. Arc Raiders is brimming with atmosphere and draws us completely into its dark setting from the very first second.
3 things that make Arc Raiders special
But how does Arc Raiders stand out from its numerous competitors in terms of gameplay? In our first few rounds in the wasteland, we discovered three important aspects that really stand out.
1. The Arc enemies
Many extraction shooters focus heavily on PvP, with AI enemies quickly becoming mere backdrop and/or cheap cannon fodder. Arc Raiders, on the other hand, is more in the vein of Hunt: Showdown, where every open PvE battle requires careful consideration.
This is because the arc machines come in many different forms – all deadly in their own way. Depending on the type of enemy, we have to choose different tactics and weapons, otherwise we’ll end up back in the main menu faster than we can say “Skynet.”
We should quickly flatten the small mechanical spiders with a melee weapon before they can jump on our faces like facehuggers. On the other hand, distance is required when dealing with the equally small mech balls that roll towards us and then activate a flamethrower.
Arc Guardians, on the other hand, are not armed at all, but they call for reinforcements as soon as they see us, and more than once our run ended in battle against the swarm of drones that followed.
Larger Arc Bots are so heavily armored that only special ammunition can help. If we don’t have that, the only option is to flee. Those who take up the fight (ideally in a team of three) can salvage extremely valuable electrical components from the wreckage.
In short: The AI enemies in Arc Raiders live up to their role as destroyers of humanity in the match, forcing us again and again to make risky decisions and proceed methodically. This ultimately makes for more exciting (and unpredictable) rounds and adds a lot to the atmosphere.
2. Progression
While in many comparable shooters, progress only takes place within a round and you start from scratch every time you die, Arc Raiders uses a hybrid model.
As in a roguelite, there is a comprehensive talent treein which we gradually invest skill points for completed quests, allowing us to customize our raider’s build – this feels more flexible and personal than, for example, the archetypal hero blueprints in Marathon.
Divided into the categories of survival, mobility, and stamina, we can give our character various abilities, such as faster loot searching, more endurance for sprints, hearing protection against explosions, or resistance to fall damage.
This means that even if we die, we always make a little bit of progress, which should significantly reduce the frustration typical of this genre when you have a run of bad luck.
In addition, there is aextensive crafting system that is somewhat reminiscent of Escape from Tarkov: Between raids, we use the raw materials we have collected to craft new equipment in our base, as well as create and upgrade workbenches, which we can then use to build increasingly high-quality items – provided we have the right recipes.
Each new mission not only entices us with the prospect of lots of cash, but could also finally secure the next level of our tech station, allowing us to finally craft the cool scan grenades for detecting enemies ourselves, instead of having to buy them at a high price from the dealer.
3. The social aspect
Arc Raiders deliberately places the PvP aspect in a gray area. You never have to attack other players. If you do, you can grab all their loot – or lose everything in the attempt.
But there are also areas between fighting and ignoring: Through the combination of proximity voice chat and the extremely nasty Arc enemies, the shooter even encourages players to cooperate with spontaneous acquaintances on the battlefield
During our play session, the GlobalESportNews squad of three people happened to come across a solo player. He just starts firing away (possibly out of pure shooter habit or panic), even though he is hopelessly outnumbered.
When he lay defeated on the ground, a surprising option opened up: either we finish him off or we use a healing injector to get him back on his feet – a feature that is reserved for your own team in almost all other shooters.
But in Arc Raiders, we were even able to nurse the enemy back to health and convince the poor solo player to join us. As a team of four, we defeated other trios, made a big haul, and even took out one of the heavy Arc units – a feat that would have been impossible alone.
Voice chat allowed us to communicate with our new comrades immediately, and pre-made emotes such as “Don’t shoot” signal friendly intentions at the touch of a button. Of course, such alliances are fragile and there is no guarantee that a random guy from the internet won’t suddenly stab us in the back.
But the mere possibility of easy communication and cooperation opens up an exciting new dimension within the extraction genre that is definitely worth exploring further.
Editor’s conclusion
Sure, in the race for the extraction crown, Arc Raiders is just another contender among countless others on paper. But when you play it, you immediately realize that Embark Studios is cooking up something special here.
The overgrown world full of murderous machines is both beautiful and terrifying, and it almost involuntarily awakens certain primal instincts in me: What could be hiding in that old radio tower over there in the east? Can I defeat the big killer robot in front of that bunker entrance in the north on my own? Should I run towards the rattling gunfire in the south, take out the survivors, and loot their backpacks?
Arc Raiders feels like a sandbox full of tactical possibilities without overwhelming me with five thousand different icons, quests, and markers on the map. Everything feels organic and logical. Exploration is satisfying, combat is dangerous and brutal, and the game world is readable and believable.
If all these systems really work well together in the end and can motivate players in the long term, then Arc Raiders might just become the new king of extraction games.
