ARC Raiders conflicts me. Everything I saw regarding the game before launch suggested that it was a game that would be right up my alley. Giant robots. A banging 70s/80s retro aesthetic. Co-op with my friends. For the most part, those suspicions turned out to be true because I do genuinely enjoy ARC Raiders thematically and atmospherically. Yet it gives me very little incentive to log in each day and play.
An extraction shooter from Embark Studios, ARC Raiders comes from a team made up of a lot of former Battlefield and Star Wars: Battlefront developers, and that pedigree is very much apparent. I would be remiss not to mention that ARC Raiders underwent a big change in its development as well, as I feel like it may contextualise many of my thoughts in this review. When it was first revealed at The Game Awards in 2021, it was pitched as a co-op PvE game centred around fighting massive enemies in large-scale encounters, not an extraction shooter with PvP elements.
You are a Raider, and your job is to venture up to the surface of a post-apocalyptic Earth, gather resources and other valuable items, and safely return home without getting yourself killed. There are currently five maps to play on, and each has a distinct aesthetic and theme. From a derelict dam surrounded by a forest, a city buried by rolling dunes, and an old spaceport. The cassette-futurism aesthetic that ARC Raiders leans on feels distinct and refreshingly different, and the game’s atmosphere creates a world I want to be invested in. Emphasis on the want. Because for all the style and atmosphere that the game builds, the overall experience ends up feeling somewhat flat and, ultimately, doesn’t incentivise me to come back day after day, and I feel as though the pivot in design direction from that original pitch for the game may have something to do with it.
As an extraction shooter, ARC Raiders will be familiar to anyone who has played other games in the genre. The surface world is littered with dangers, one of which are the Arcs. These robotic enemies are far more dangerous than they look, even when alone, and can easily overwhelm players if you’re careless or underprepared. The most common Arcs you’re likely to come across are Wasps or Hornets. These are flying drone-like enemies that can easily spot you when you least expect them. Wasps will riddle you with bullets, whilst Hornets will stun you with an electric shock, rendering you unable to move. Thankfully, most Arcs have a clear weakness, and in the case of these flying Arcs, you’ll want to take out their rotors, causing them to lose stability and be unable to hit you.
There are, of course, bigger and more fearsome Arc enemies prowling the various maps of ARC Raiders, too. You’ll come across Leapers, which are large, spider-like, and surprisingly fast. They hit like a truck as well. Then you have the Rocketeer, which is like a Wasp or Hornet on steroids. It still flies, but it is large, menacing, and will barrage you with rockets from a distance if it gets you in its sights. Unless you’re looking for specific components, it’s sometimes wise to skirt around the Arc enemies and not engage unless you desperately need to. The quieter and more incognito you remain in ARC Raiders, the better your chances of survival.
From what I’ve described, you’d already think you’re up against insurmountable odds. But the world is a lot more hostile than just the Arc enemies, because you’ll also need to contend with your fellow players at the same time. ARC Raiders is a PvEvP game, which means that a random guy sitting in a bush and watching your every move can (and will) end your life without a second thought.
Perhaps that is slightly exaggerated on my part. Player interactions in ARC Raiders have, honestly, been one of the highlights of the game for me. There’s a strange rush of adrenaline whenever you encounter another player who hasn’t shot you on sight. As someone who doesn’t really talk to randoms in multiplayer games, ARC Raiders somewhat incentivises you to do so. There were times I’d have the drop on another player, and I could absolutely end them if I wanted to. But more often than not, I’d announce my presence to them and let them know I wasn’t hostile. Most of these scenarios are like two ships passing in the night. Each of us would go our separate ways, never to be seen again. But sometimes other players would ask if I had certain resources to spare, or if I knew where to find certain things, or even if we should team up to take on a difficult Arc enemy.
Of course, you still get those who are trigger-happy and won’t negotiate at all, but for some reason, they seem to be a rarity. You do also get the occasional double-cross where somebody you’ve been chummy with for the last ten minutes pulls a gun on you at the last second and steals your stuff, but part of me can respect them for committing to the ruse.
Once you do manage to extract from the map, you’re taken back to Speranza, which serves as your hub to set up for your next expedition. Speranza, however, is not a very fleshed-out place and is mostly navigated via menus where you’ll shift between your inventory, loadout, customisation, battle pass, and vendors. I do feel as though the game has missed a trick here by not making Speranza a dedicated social hub where you’re able to interact with other players when they’re not actively able to gun you down on the spot. It just feels slightly soulless and disconnected from the rest of the game.
That being said, though, the overall atmosphere of the game, the dread and tension that you feel when a player emerges around a corner, or an Arc enemy is threatening to spot you, and the audio design and cues that might alert you to someone or something trying to get the drop on you; these are all absolutely fantastic and electrifying. But it’s all of the other systems outside of this that begin to conflict with me when it comes to the overall game. I truly feel that outside of these emergent gameplay moments, the game isn’t incentivising me enough to stick around.
The extraction framework obviously offers a clear structure for players, but it rarely feels compelling beyond the initial novelty, and many objectives start to blur together and feel basic in their execution. Progression is also surprisingly thin. Gear upgrades come slowly, crafting options are limited, and the rewards rarely justify the time investment, leaving the experience feeling somewhat hollow. I know the whole premise of an extraction shooter is the risk-versus-reward of losing all your accumulated gear if you die, including items you slotted into your loadout before heading on an excursion. Still, I never feel incentivised to take good gear out into the world with me when the “free loadout” option exists. This gives you access to a random assortment of basic weapons and other items at the expense of not being able to carry as much loot.
In this sense, I find that the risk factor is essentially null and void, because using a free loadout only means you stand to gain rewards, provided you don’t die. But the thing that irks me most is knowing what actually to do with those rewards after you get them? In one instance, I took down another player who had a fully kitted out shotgun and other valuable loot, who had just ruined another player’s day. Again, I was using a free loadout, so if I’d died, I wouldn’t have lost anything meaningful. I shoved his shotgun and everything else I could carry in my backpack and extracted, only to throw everything into my stash at the earliest convenience. I haven’t touched any of it since then.
It does make me wonder, what exactly is the point of the game if the core loop doesn’t satisfy? Why am I collecting all of this gear only to shove it away out of sight? Are there plans down the line to offer more powerful enemies or events that will require stronger gear? Time will tell, I suppose, but right now it feels as though the live service curse may come for ARC Raiders as it has for so many others; under-delivering on gameplay, and ultimately haemorrhaging players as a result. ARC Raiders undoubtedly has strong foundations, with a brilliant aesthetic, evocative atmosphere, and genuinely thrilling emergent gameplay. But without stronger progression systems or a more engaging loop to keep players invested, the game genuinely struggles to hold my attention for more than an hour at a time.
Perhaps that original vision in the reveal trailer, where large groups of people combine forces to take on massive enemies in those large-scale encounters without the risk of PvP, will eventually materialise in some form or another? If it does, then I can absolutely see the appeal of accumulating gear and equipment to take on endgame bosses.
But it isn’t just the gameplay loop that ARC Raiders falters on. My biggest gripe with the game is its use of generative AI, which I firmly believe is a very slippery slope that will eventually bankrupt games of all creativity. ARC Raiders mainly uses it for the voice of your player character when communicating with other players through pings or emotes, and I knew from the get-go that something felt off when listening to my character’s voice. It came across as unnatural and uncanny; it just didn’t sit right with me. Embark Studios confirmed soon afterwards that they had used generative AI voices, but that only gave me more pause for thought over what else they might have slipped into the game that uses it. It’s sad because, as I mentioned earlier, ARC Raiders has a genuinely great atmosphere to it, and it’s worrying that some of it may not have even been constructed in a creative manner by an actual person.
