ARC Raiders is a game built around tension. Not the horror-movie kind, but the slow, creeping, cheeks-clenched kind that comes from knowing every footstep, every rustle, and every distant gunshot might be the thing that ends your run. Developed and published by Embark Studios, this third-person PvPvE extraction shooter blends high-stakes scavenging, unpredictable player interactions, and a surprisingly hopeful aesthetic into something far more approachable than its genre peers.
On paper, ARC Raiders fits neatly under the “extraction shooter” label. You drop into a large zone, scavenge for gear, survive hostile robots and players, and race to an extraction point hopefully before dying and losing everything you brought with you. Unlike other games in the genre, particularly the unforgiving Escape from Tarkov, ARC Raiders builds in systems that keep new players engaged rather than punished. Even failed runs award XP that feeds into skill trees, passive bonuses, and account-wide upgrades. Free loadouts mean you’re never locked out of playing because you lost your best gun. That alone makes experimentation more appealing, reducing the fear of “one bad run” ruining your evening.
The social aspect of the game is such a rollercoaster of emotions.
What makes the game special, though, is how it treats social encounters. Every raid is a gamble: Will the player you just bumped into be friendly? Will they shoot on sight? Or will you both nervously call “Friendly! Friendly!” in proximity chat before teaming up to take down a group of ARCs? These moments, the unexpected cooperation, sudden betrayal, and tense standoffs emerge naturally from the design. There are no formal factions, morality systems, or incentives to push players toward pacifism or aggression. The community is left to shape its own norms, and that freedom creates stories that stick with you.
Some runs feel almost MMO-like, where a handful of strangers organically band together to help fight robots, trade ammo, or clear objectives. Other runs feel like a horror game where every sound signals danger. And sometimes, you get both in the same session: peaceful looting followed by a panicked sprint to extraction as another squad sets up an ambush. That unpredictability, where the vibe swings wildly based on who and what you meet, is ARC Raiders at its best.
ARC enemies range in all shapes and sizes.
Visually and tonally, the game is a fascinating blend of bleakness and hope. The world’s lore is grim: humanity forced underground, the surface overrun by chrome-plated ARCs. But the art direction leans into retro-futurism with bright, colorful Raider outfits, painterly skies, and overgrown ruins that suggest nature is slowly reclaiming the world.
The audio design ties it all together. Footsteps on cracked pavement, the distant whir of a patrol drone, the screaming ARC of a missile overhead, everything feeds into that “constant tension” machine. Looting certain containers is intentionally loud, so much so that there are perks and skill upgrades specifically to make you quieter.
The tension of friendly or combative players brings an excitement to the game unlike many others.
It gives even mundane actions a weight that most shooters struggle to achieve. You’re not just opening a toolbox; you’re rolling the dice on whether that sound is going to pull in a patrol, a curious squad, or both.
The game isn’t without its growing pains. The loot economy can feel overwhelming. You’ll pick up dozens of scrap items such as electronics, junk, materials, without any clear indicator of what’s important and what isn’t. It’s led to a wave of community-made charts and infographics explaining which items matter, giving the game a slightly Monster Hunter-like vibe that I am all too familiar with, where the community fills in gaps the UI leaves unclear. It’s charming to a degree, but clearer sorting tools or more obvious rarity markers would go a long way toward smoothing the learning curve.
And of course, as an online-only experience, ARC Raiders brings the usual live-game realities: server hiccups, matchmaking delays, and the knowledge that when the servers go down, the game does too. To Embark’s credit, they’ve been responsive and transparent about fixes, but it’s still something to keep in mind. There’s no offline mode, no story campaign, and no solo instance where you can go farm in peace. You’re always in the shared experiment, with all the unpredictability that entails.
If that idea stresses you out, this may not be your game.
The audio and visuals are not something to scoff at.
ARC Raiders is an extraction shooter designed for people who have always been extraction-curious but too intimidated to dive in. It keeps the core appeal of the genre, the high stakes, the gut-check decisions at the edge of extraction, the stories you tell afterward, but wraps it in accessible progression, a hopeful (if fragile) world, and a surprisingly wholesome streak of player-driven cooperation.
It’s not perfect. The loot economy needs clearer communication, long-term variety will depend heavily on how Embark executes their roadmap, and the social experiment that makes the game so special could just as easily tilt into permanent “kill on sight” culture over time. But right now, in this early window where people are still shouting “Friendly! Friendly!” into proximity chat and forming spontaneous alliances to burn down mechanical horrors, ARC Raiders is something genuinely exciting. Just do yourself a favor before you load in:
The sooner you accept that you can, and likely will lose anything, the sooner you’ll start enjoying the runs where you use everything.
ARC Raiders is a game built around tension. Not the horror-movie kind, but the slow, creeping, cheeks-clenched kind that comes from knowing every footstep, every rustle, and every distant gunshot might be the thing that ends your run. Developed and…
ARC Raiders is a game built around tension. Not the horror-movie kind, but the slow, creeping, cheeks-clenched kind that comes from knowing every footstep, every rustle, and every distant gunshot might be the thing that ends your run. Developed and published by Embark Studios, this third-person PvPvE extraction shooter blends high-stakes scavenging, unpredictable player interactions, and a surprisingly hopeful aesthetic into something far more approachable than its genre peers.
On paper, ARC Raiders fits neatly under the “extraction shooter” label. You drop into a large zone, scavenge for gear, survive hostile robots and players, and race to an extraction point hopefully before dying and losing everything you brought with you. Unlike other games in the genre, particularly the unforgiving Escape from Tarkov, ARC Raiders builds in systems that keep new players engaged rather than punished. Even failed runs award XP that feeds into skill trees, passive bonuses, and account-wide upgrades. Free loadouts mean you’re never locked out of playing because you lost your best gun. That alone makes experimentation more appealing, reducing the fear of “one bad run” ruining your evening.
The social aspect of the game is such a rollercoaster of emotions.
What makes the game special, though, is how it treats social encounters. Every raid is a gamble: Will the player you just bumped into be friendly? Will they shoot on sight? Or will you both nervously call “Friendly! Friendly!” in proximity chat before teaming up to take down a group of ARCs? These moments, the unexpected cooperation, sudden betrayal, and tense standoffs emerge naturally from the design. There are no formal factions, morality systems, or incentives to push players toward pacifism or aggression. The community is left to shape its own norms, and that freedom creates stories that stick with you.
Some runs feel almost MMO-like, where a handful of strangers organically band together to help fight robots, trade ammo, or clear objectives. Other runs feel like a horror game where every sound signals danger. And sometimes, you get both in the same session: peaceful looting followed by a panicked sprint to extraction as another squad sets up an ambush. That unpredictability, where the vibe swings wildly based on who and what you meet, is ARC Raiders at its best.
ARC enemies range in all shapes and sizes.
Visually and tonally, the game is a fascinating blend of bleakness and hope. The world’s lore is grim: humanity forced underground, the surface overrun by chrome-plated ARCs. But the art direction leans into retro-futurism with bright, colorful Raider outfits, painterly skies, and overgrown ruins that suggest nature is slowly reclaiming the world.
The audio design ties it all together. Footsteps on cracked pavement, the distant whir of a patrol drone, the screaming ARC of a missile overhead, everything feeds into that “constant tension” machine. Looting certain containers is intentionally loud, so much so that there are perks and skill upgrades specifically to make you quieter.
The tension of friendly or combative players brings an excitement to the game unlike many others.
It gives even mundane actions a weight that most shooters struggle to achieve. You’re not just opening a toolbox; you’re rolling the dice on whether that sound is going to pull in a patrol, a curious squad, or both.
The game isn’t without its growing pains. The loot economy can feel overwhelming. You’ll pick up dozens of scrap items such as electronics, junk, materials, without any clear indicator of what’s important and what isn’t. It’s led to a wave of community-made charts and infographics explaining which items matter, giving the game a slightly Monster Hunter-like vibe that I am all too familiar with, where the community fills in gaps the UI leaves unclear. It’s charming to a degree, but clearer sorting tools or more obvious rarity markers would go a long way toward smoothing the learning curve.
And of course, as an online-only experience, ARC Raiders brings the usual live-game realities: server hiccups, matchmaking delays, and the knowledge that when the servers go down, the game does too. To Embark’s credit, they’ve been responsive and transparent about fixes, but it’s still something to keep in mind. There’s no offline mode, no story campaign, and no solo instance where you can go farm in peace. You’re always in the shared experiment, with all the unpredictability that entails.
If that idea stresses you out, this may not be your game.
The audio and visuals are not something to scoff at.
ARC Raiders is an extraction shooter designed for people who have always been extraction-curious but too intimidated to dive in. It keeps the core appeal of the genre, the high stakes, the gut-check decisions at the edge of extraction, the stories you tell afterward, but wraps it in accessible progression, a hopeful (if fragile) world, and a surprisingly wholesome streak of player-driven cooperation.
It’s not perfect. The loot economy needs clearer communication, long-term variety will depend heavily on how Embark executes their roadmap, and the social experiment that makes the game so special could just as easily tilt into permanent “kill on sight” culture over time. But right now, in this early window where people are still shouting “Friendly! Friendly!” into proximity chat and forming spontaneous alliances to burn down mechanical horrors, ARC Raiders is something genuinely exciting. Just do yourself a favor before you load in:
The sooner you accept that you can, and likely will lose anything, the sooner you’ll start enjoying the runs where you use everything.
by Kurosh Jozavi
