Good day gamers! If you’re in the gaming sphere in any way, you probably heard about Arc Raiders at some point. It has been the talk of the town for a while now and it still continues to hold consistent high player counts on Steam and consoles. But what brings me to talk about it today is how it managed to become one of my main games and pull me away from other shooters like COD and Battlefield.

A Cut Above The Rest

Let’s get into the gameplay first. Arc Raiders is a PVE / PVP extraction shooter. With that information alone you kind of have an idea or expectation about how its mechanics function, however, it does things a little differently than most extraction shooters.

The first thing I noticed in AR is that there are no enemy health bars – anywhere – and this is incredible. The game is visually gorgeous and highly immersive, and you need to pay attention to the animations and damage states to learn when an enemy is weak. This creates a more intense survival experience, especially when fighting the Arc enemies because at first you have no idea what to expect or how to handle them.

The Heart of ARC – PVP vs. PVE

Now let’s get into the source of stress, anxiety, and trauma filled trust issues… The PVP. Each time you start a new raid you are matched with random players who may or may not be using a microphone and may or may not be looking to murder you and loot your gear. This proximity chat function is one of the main selling points of this game, and it’s really because you can try to talk your way out of getting deleted, or possibly meet a level headed player who can actually revive you if you were downed at some point. The truth is you just don’t know what someone’s intentions are until they start shooting at you, all while you have the same option to play however cautiously or violently you choose.

This “randomness” between players is one of the driving mechanics in Arc Raiders and it’s this constant tension when encountering other players that keeps you on edge. The main pressure comes from the total uncertainty. Because some players can lure others in with emotes or through proximity chat, you really don’t know what’s going to happen, or if you can trust the communication. In some cases some players try to lure you into choke points or glitched areas and cause you to die or lose all your gear, making each interaction feel like it could be your last.

What’s funny, is that player behavior is the most telling, especially about the human nature of people. There are some straight shooters that will keep to themselves as long as you do the same, then you have edgy trigger people who start off neutral then flip on you and shoot you in the back the second you walk away, and then you have schemers / psychos who will try to play you, guilt trip you, lure you in and prey on your curiosity or kindness, then all of a sudden you’re downed and knocked out. While this can become extremely frustrating (especially dying multiple matches in a row and losing a rare or upgraded weapon) this forever tug-of-war between friend or foe is what keeps Arc Raiders so addicting. Not to mention the adapting AI.

The PVE aspect of Arc Raiders is also some of the best I’ve seen in a live service game in general. The “Arc” enemies have all kinds of air superiority and in some cases crazy ground forces as well, and you always need to be on your toes when looting. The worst kind of situation is when you’re getting pinched in one direction from a rogue player and then get targeted by Arc enemies as you’re looking to escape that battle. The Arc can sometimes be relentless and without proper gear, it could mean losing that blueprint or rare item you just looted off a random player.

But PVE is also where there is something ultra special about Arc Raiders. Again it all comes down to uncertainty. For example, while playing with a friend for the first time, we ended up in a scenario where we see an enemy spider bot (called a leaper) which we had never encountered before that point. So we shift around and move to a high position where we can see it at the bottom of this canyon, and we thought much like many games before, we would just pick it off from a distance and try to get some XP. We couldn’t be more wrong.

We use our free kit hairpins (suppressed makeshift pistols) and start shooting this thing and suddenly after we triggered it, the leaper literally rocket jumps hundreds of feet into the air and reaches us on top of the building platform we were standing on. The animations were so stunning and the situation was absolutely shocking – we both started screaming out of panic and ran away from this thing in hopes of it not killing us and we managed to retreat back to safety within the building.

We learned our lesson very quickly – don’t attack Arc unless you’re properly prepared to take them down, not to mention the additional lesson of height or distance will not save you… triggered Arc enemies will get to you one way or another.

The Ugly Bits

While Arc Raiders has an awesome organic flow to its memorable moments it isn’t without its shortcomings and issues. Many times I found myself struggling to figure out what I was doing in terms of the games missions, looting and upgrading your home base, and completing missions for the vendors in Esperansa. The missions in Arc Raiders are very weak and confusing. Some missions are straight forward and simple and others will have you lost completely as there isn’t any direct guidance once you begin a new raid.

At the same time there is so much stuff going on in the menus of the game, at first I had no clue what was actually happening. There are menus upon sub menus which all explain additional in game challenges and rewards, but nothing feels clear. I just know you need tons of specific resources in order to level up specific things to get specific rewards and this lack of clarity just makes Arc feel confusing and lost.

Finally I want to address the lack of direction and the same social mechanics that make the game great, are also its worst features. Arc Raiders feels like a great game when you succeed and make it to extraction, but many times you find yourself constantly failing. Many times this can happen by mistakes (second guessing other players or hesitation) movement glitches, sometimes by trolling players, and sometimes by accidents that occur at random (accidentally jumping off too early on a zipline and plummeting to your death). This randomness always keeps the game fresh and exciting, however, when you get stuck in a losing streak, the game becomes a hellish nightmare you can’t wake up from.

I’ve had a few times where the game was just unrelenting and even abusive at times, even if I was only running a free kit. The A.I in Arc Raiders would just find ways to catch you beat you up and steal your lunch money, and once you start that losing streak it doesn’t end for a good number of matches. This has happened a few times and it was crazy to witness the seemingly never ending assault of back to back losses. Many times because of trigger happy players who never even said anything. And then this sparks the retaliation or “villain arc” for some players, including myself, to start going on “I don’t care anymore” rampages and try to kill all players you get your sights on. The worst is that once you do this you end up dying more often because you aren’t really thinking strategically anymore which lowers your chances of surviving the raid.

Final Thoughts And Score: 8.5 out of 10

Arc Raiders is a game that at first may feel intimidating, but once you get immersed into its world, there are few other games that can provide that sense of intensity, immersion, and just straight up enjoyment (especially when things work in your favor). Those moments of unpredictability is where Arc Raiders truly shines. It provides a play space for gamers to create these random, wildly engaging, entertaining, and immersive moments that you simply can’t get anywhere else. And with that I give Arc Raiders a solid 8.5 out of 10.

As always Gamers, if you made it all the down to the end of my review here, thank you so very much for your time. I hope you all have a wonderful rest of your week and are enjoying some of the new games that are coming out, there’s been a ton of new stuff. Also quick shout to my gamer family Punch and Lunch for sticking it out with me through the chaos in Arc Raiders while learning and trying to complete all these challenges to get better loot and crafting items. I would not have had as much fun without you guys.

At the time of this posting, I’m currently Playing: Resident Evil Requiem (2nd playthrough on Classic mode), Pragmata (just started it so I’m a few hours in and loving it so far), Final Sentence (super unique concept – a typing battle royale game), and Mouse P.I. For Hire (Just started this game as well, super unique art style, I’ll dive deeper in a review).