Arc Raiders recently had its Tech Test, allowing some lucky few to get in and play Embark Studios’ next title, an Extraction Shooter. If you aren’t familiar with Embark, the team was founded in 2018 by industry vets from EA and released their first game, The Finals, in 2023 and look to release their second title, Arc Raiders, at an unknown date later this year.
Is There Room For More?
Extraction Shooters have been coming in hot lately and leaving us just as quickly as they came in. The Scavengers, gone, The Cycle, gone. Can Arc Raiders change this cycle of games, disappearing shortly after players begin their journey? Embark looks to bring their latest extraction shooter, Arc Raiders, and prove they can compete with the big dogs. Escape from Tarkov remains as the largest extraction shooter in the genre, with close to 100k concurrent players as of time of writing, for this almost 10-year-old title. Which is not on Steam or consoles. Vigor still continues to launch new seasons and so does Hunt Showdown. Both of which are on console.
There has been a lot of back and forth between Arc Raiders and Bungie’s next game, which just so happens to be an extraction shooter as well, with Marathon making a unique return. Both titles will NOT be free-to-play, which is a divisive topic on its own. Though I wasn’t able to partake in the Marathon alpha that just recently happened, I was able to get in and play Arc Raiders and I came away waiting for the next opportunity to jump right back into this beautiful wasteland with my friends!
Arc Raiders was going to be a looter shooter. Now, Embark has changed it, but kept that loot shooter feeling and added the competitive sense of urgency with ownership and PvP. You may not make it out alive, leaving it all behind for raiders to grab your high-level loot. Such is the battle in the genre, always being careful with what you bring, while trying to stay alive and make it back out.
Leave No Raider Behind
I absolutely loved my time with Arc Raiders. I tend to lean on the side of slower-paced games, no COD here with your Omni movement, or jumping across the screen as I line up my shot to get completely destroyed in battle. It’s slower, more methodical. Planning your next move to a high-value location is important and could mean the end of your travels across the Rust Belt at any moment. I always felt a sense of tension during my time playing. It was exciting and a thrill, whether I was solo or hanging out with my friends completing our quests and grinding our Skill Tree or leveling up our Workshops. There was a goal in mind when heading out on our next venture to loot up that was fulfilling and rewarding when achieved.
Running on Unreal Engine 5, the Rust Belt is visually stunning. The game is absolutely gorgeous and, for most of my time in the closed beta, ran smoothly. There were moments of getting locked up while loading into the game, or when heading down the elevator to cash in our score, I would land on a black screen, stuck to no end. Some light may flash through some walls from time to time, but there is still plenty of time to flesh out the bugs and polish things up before launch.
The combat was just how I hoped it would feel: tight, precise and on point. The movement reminded me of The Last of Us, or The Division, with its third-person shoulder-swapping gameplay. It was everything I wanted. Lurking through the swap area, or adventuring out at night, the pure darkness will force you to break out your flashlight in hopes that no one is close by to spot the shine of your light looking for loot. Breaking into crates, cars or buses in fear that someone will hear the loud clanking sounds or, as the many robotic Arcs will spot you, brings tension to the game and gets your heart pumping with excitement! Bringing down the bosses brings another level of complexity to the game that isn’t found in other PvP extraction shooters. You might just come across a team that are willing to work with you and take out The Queen, one of the most punishing bosses in the game, that was only defeated 58 times over the course of the beta, and had seen over 4 million rounds of the game played in just a few days.
The audio brings Arc Raiders to the next level. Without the audio, the game would feel less impactful. It truly makes the game an incredible experience. The eerie atmosphere when you are indoors, or the ambient sounds of the swap area. I keep going back to the feeling of tension. However, when the audio cue’s up and the rain of gunfire lurks in the background, it becomes a remarkable feeling.
Home base, as we will call it. It’s not a social hub, but a set-up that brings a presentation that isn’t boring with objective lists and quests given to us from the NPC’s of the world. We’re presented with Traders that will allow us to buy certain items, depending on their role in the underbelly of the Rust Belt. Or, present us with quests as we chat with each of them that will reward us with XP and material to our ever-ending grind of having better gear. Among our home base is where we will also look to upgrade our Workshop that allows us to craft new items, upgrade gear, dismantle unwanted items and the like. We live below and go above to the Rust Belt in search for better gear to bring below.
A Beautiful Wasteland
My time was certainly an incredible journey with Arc Raiders. The sheer laughter of hanging out with my friends while traveling across the Rust Belt. The visually stunning landscape, the blackout of the night raids, it all comes together in a very polished and exciting, thrilling fight for survival that not many titles can bring in this current state of the industry. I know my friends and I will be there day one on launch day to jump back into Arc Raiders, a game that, though the beta is over, we are still talking about. That’s a good sign when a game has you talking about it, even when it’s over.
Let us know in the comments below if you were able to get into Arc Raiders and what you think of the game.
