Online game "ARC Raiders"

The extraction shooter genre seems established. Indeed, it's hard to come up with something new within such simple rules: you drop onto a map, fight enemies, collect loot, and leave for a safe location in time using a special evacuation point. Didn't make it? You lose everything you've collected. That's why shooters of this format are to some extent similar either to Escape from Tarkov or Hunt: Showdown. Nevertheless, former Electronic Arts employees who created their own studio Embark and have already made their mark with The Finals have indeed come up with an original idea. In ARC Raiders they offer solutions to many genre problems. Let's examine in detail why this newcomer became a hit in digital stores.

Despite the shooter being paid, it gained phenomenal online numbers on Steam within a week — as soon as the counter passed the 300,000 simultaneous connections mark, server problems began and queues formed. For clarity, this is more than Battlefield 6 had at launch. Even more surprising is that the genre is currently experiencing a real boom, as was the case several years ago with «battle royales». But even against the backdrop of intense competition, the Embark project not only stood out but immediately broke into the lead.

The game's action takes place on Earth after the end of the world. From who knows where, hordes of intelligent ARC machines appeared, they captured the entire planet and destroyed most of humanity. Survivors hid in underground cities where robots cannot reach. But such settlements still need resources, especially parts of deadly mechanisms from the surface. To deliver these spare parts and artifacts of the past down below, the bravest people risk their lives every day and make raids in search of loot. You will play as one of such heroes, residing in the Speranza district of the underground city of Toledo. But first you need to choose their appearance and gender in the editor.

The raid rules in ARC Raiders are familiar to anyone who has ever launched an extraction shooter. First you need to equip your character using items from personal storage, then decide on a map, mode — and off you go. The hero's equipment has slots for a backpack, two types of weapons, a power shield generator that replaces armor here, grenades, bandages and other consumables. In addition there is a hidden pocket where initially you can only place one item — even after the raider's death this item can be extracted from the map. But the rest of the equipment and loot in case of failure you lose. To survive, you'll have to fend off ARC machines and other heroes, and also return to Speranza in time, reaching the exit points.

You need to get used to the shooting in the game. It seems sluggish: long reloads, unhurried aiming, shots from most guns don't deal much damage. But in combination with grenade throwing and acrobatic elements (jumps, rolls in all directions, sliding on your «fifth point») battles acquire quite decent dynamics. Moreover, the third-person view sets special conditions for combat. For example, any raider can watch you from around a corner while remaining invisible themselves. But thanks to free shoulder switching there's no longer a need to peek from cover only on the right. The thing is, in first-person shooters all heroes are right-handed, and when they peek left, they have to expose not only their head but also their chest, whereas checking right doesn't reveal as much of the body. Here this problem simply doesn't exist.

Effects help you orient yourself in combat: if you're being targeted, an elongated blue glare will indicate where the enemy is perched, and when this glare turns red, it means an attack is already happening. When a raider's power shield is destroyed, a burst of blue sparks flashes around the character figure — and further damage goes «into the meat». Having received critical damage, the raider goes into a knockout — in this state you can crawl for some time and even manage to evacuate from the map if the elevator is nearby. The indication of robot malfunctions is even more interesting: the degree of machine damage is easily assessed by its behavior. Walking ones start to limp, flying ones spin and wobble ridiculously as if trying to compensate for the loss of one of their engines.

In general, Embark paid a lot of attention to details. Sometimes you admire how the developers implemented the movements of people and machines, how a character who jumps from a great height lands on their damaged leg, how great a rooftop run looks — with jumps from one slope to another, quick descents down ladders and flights between buildings on a zipline. It feels like this is a single-player adventure shooter, not an MMO. The location design and sound design complement the overall picture. The post-apocalyptic decorations somewhat resemble future scenes from «Terminator», they are created with all the love for this setting. And the sounds are worked out in such detail that you can easily determine where a robot is approaching from, and you'll take off your headphones to make sure it's water gurgling in the game and not a leaking faucet at home.

You can't ignore the fame of ARC Raiders as the most friendly evacuation shooter. Here all conditions are truly created so that even solo gamers prefer to befriend rather than fight each other. The machines in the game are actually dangerous — the first encounter with a robot will most likely end fatally for you. Therefore heroes occasionally unite their efforts to together take down a particularly dangerous creature and collect rare loot from it. And to call for peace you just need to press one button — and your character will shout «Don't shoot!». This actually works… in 10% of cases. Because a raider who agreed to be friends might shoot you in the back a minute later. Another will calmly wait while you defeat several robots, spend your ammo on them, and then treacherously attack you as soon as you go to collect the loot.

Such situations are par for the course here. And even a hardened pacifist in such an environment will think about whether to open fire first — just in case. Because in all extraction shooters man is a wolf to man, and the most valuable trophies are hidden in the backpack of someone hurrying to the map exit. Get ambushed at the elevator once, twice, three times — and the veneer of friendliness will be blown away like by the wind.

Currently there are five maps in the game, with a sixth on the way — «Stella Montis». According to rumors, it will be made the most difficult, but for now let's talk about those locations that are already available. Each of them has a certain difficulty related to the strength of the machines that patrol it. All beginners start on the «Battlefield at the Dam», then the «Buried City» opens up, and so on down the list. The design of the maps is unique — for example, the Dam has an industrial landscape, while the «Buried City» consists of residential buildings buried in sand. In addition, maps are divided into zones from the inside: yellow ones are less dangerous than red ones, but the loot in them is not as valuable. In white ones, not marked with color, there's usually nothing to catch except a stray bullet, but some loot can be found there too.

Something is constantly happening on the terrain, it's not dead despite the prevailing atmosphere of devastation. Sometimes rain will pour down, drowning out surrounding sounds, sometimes a dry bush will roll by or a bird will take flight, distracting your attention, sometimes lightning will strike someone who sits in one place for too long. There are also interactive moments: a zipline helps cut the path if you have one in your inventory, and to open some doors you need to find a power cell and drag it to an electronic panel — anyone who remembers Dead Space well will experience déjà vu.

There are only two modes related to combat conditions — you can enter the map during the day or at night. In sunlight, as strange as it may sound, it's easier to be stealthy, whereas in darkness you can't do without a flashlight — its light, visible from afar, will easily give away a raider. However, night raids bring more valuable loot. There's also a pair of equipment modes: in one you assemble your character using what's stored at the base, and in the other you receive a random equipment set for free. But in both cases the persona is one and the same — there are no separate raids in the role of a 'wild' here. Without investing a penny in preparation, you can still complete quests and accumulate experience points to invest them in your hero's development.

Your character has a full-fledged progression system that consumes experience points earned in raids. Three progression branches are provided: «Endurance», «Mobility» and «Survivability». The first allows you to improve stamina and health stats, in the second you make acrobatics like jumps, slides and rolls more effective, and in the third you can perfect stealth and loot collection skills. Experience for leveling all three lines is awarded for any action, be it dealing damage or searching crates. And even if a raider dies without reaching the map exit point, the acquired experience will still remain with them.

The loot collected on the map is not just a scattering of trinkets, but resources for crafting and base development. You can build workbenches on it to assemble equipment for yourself without trips to the local market where the same goods will cost more. In addition, a pet awaits the hero at home — a rooster named Plushkin. He is always ready to provide some resources and support his owner before the next raid.

The game doesn't offer a detailed weapon builder, but allows you to upgrade any barrel several times using a workbench and resources, and also install three to four modifications — for example, upgrade the grip, stock and muzzle brake. This partly resembles PUBG, where weapon upgrades are organized in the same way. But these upgrades don't give any exceptional advantage. The main thing here is shooting skill, so an experienced gamer with a free pistol will have more chances during a shootout than a newbie with a fully upgraded assault rifle. Although when two shooting gurus clash, such attachments can indeed decide the outcome of the battle.

Since the shooter is already paid, you cannot buy any power-ups for real money, and all upgrades, including increasing the number of slots in storage, are available for in-game currency earned on the battlefield and through trading. It's very hard to lose out here: you can continuously wear free equipment, lose your hero in every raid — and still receive levels, basic resources and develop your base. You won't find anything similar in other extraction shooters. Although ARC Raiders repeats the usual genre conventions, in some ways it radically differs from competitors.

Now let's talk about how exactly the specialists from Embark solved the most pressing problems of extraction shooters. Due to the constant risk of losing equipment and loot, the genre filters gamers: those who are good at virtual shooting and tactical decision-making quickly grow in levels, get rich and fill their coffers to the brim with loot, while those who are bad at such things soon end up with nothing. But developers still try to maintain the interest of slow shooters: sometimes they offer a safe mode in the game, sometimes rewards for each login.

The creators of ARC Raiders, in turn, simply allowed you to go on a raid with a free equipment set at any moment, while characters in the 'wild' variant don't differ that much from manually prepared heroes of initial levels. Both have roughly equal chances. If in «Tarkov» you're given control of a pauper with a pistol, then in Embark's shooter you get a fighter more or less ready for all the challenges of the post-apocalypse.

The second nuance is opponent selection in raids. In many games it's common for solo players to enter the battlefield against squads, and for beginners to face experienced gamers. Of course, you can't expect skill assessments from ARC Raiders' algorithms, but they generally sort raiders by equipment value and make sure that solo players and groups don't interfere with each other in the same session. Solo players fight solo players, and squads clash against squads. Seems like a small thing, but it's nice.

Victory in an extraction shooter also partly depends on knowledge of the terrain. You need to understand where things are located and how to get there more easily, and also competently choose retreat routes in difficult situations. Therefore the map architecture strongly influences tactics and generally your hero's chances of survival. But in Embark's game there are no such rigid conventions — you can find a zipline among other loot and blaze your own path through the air.

People familiar with the genre know that the closer a raid gets to the end, the lower the activity in it. Simply put, many match participants manage to evacuate before its midpoint, and only the most stubborn, cautious, or those who are popularly called «mosinists» due to their appreciation of the Mosin rifle for its cheapness and stopping power remain on the map. With the cautious it's clear: some really avoid PvP, collect the nearest loot and sit in cover until the red timer to dash to the exit with minimal risk. Well, in ARC Raiders characters enter the map in waves — at the beginning and middle of the raid. Therefore the battlefield is constantly active.

As for the 'mosinists' waiting at exit points and lying in bushes for half an hour with a powerful rifle, they exist here too, as in any other online shooter. But being one specifically in Embark's work is more difficult than anywhere else. Because a number of factors point to a lurking threat — from flocks of birds taking flight to robots that survey the battlefield from above and can react to a shooter. And a camper can't kill you with one headshot, as in the same Arena Breakout: Infinite. In any situation there's a chance to fight back. And if a sneak attack still succeeds, any dying raider automatically shoots into the air from a rocket launcher, which attracts those nearby. Thus the hunter easily becomes the prey.

Sudden attacks while collecting loot from defeated enemies or from crates have ruined quite a few nerves for users of «Arena» and «Tarkov». After all, at the moment of searching you have to switch to the inventory interface and engage in «Tetris» there, squeezing items of different sizes into an already packed backpack. Meanwhile the surrounding world doesn't freeze — and enemies remain dangerous as before. ARC Raiders maximally simplifies all these collections: here any item, including weapons, takes up exactly one cell, so loot can be quickly distributed among pockets without unnecessarily exposing yourself to bullets.

We've already said that genre games strictly filter gamers by skill level. This filtering eventually leads to some users swimming in money and loot, while others have tumbleweeds in their stash. To eliminate «class inequality», some developers use a seasonal forced wipe — deletion of progress and collected supplies. The authors of ARC Raiders decided to act differently: whoever wants to wipe themselves and receive a set of decorations as a reward is free to invest a bunch of resources into the «Expedition» project, while whoever can't accumulate wealth at all need not fear forced wipes — there simply aren't any. At least for now.

There's an impression that the developers took note of all gamers' complaints about the most popular extraction shooters and tried to do the bug fixing work for their competitors. In most cases Embark really succeeded. So the conclusion suggests itself.

The masterpiece from ARC Raiders came about almost by accident. The developers planned to release a PvE shooter from the very beginning, so they paid a lot of attention to AI-controlled opponents, but at some point the evacuation genre became so popular that it would be a sin not to take advantage of it. For most games, such a change of horses midstream does more harm, but here it became an exception to the rule. For a number of reasons, Embark's work is head and shoulders above other representatives of the fashionable genre. And the only thing you can fault it for is minor flaws and the cost of the game. Want to have fun — put your money on the barrel. However, if you like well-made online shooters, it's still worth it.

Zarium. December 2025.