Arc Raiders is an extraction shooter from Embark Studios – so, a game where you deploy into a map full of other players and do as much shooting and looting as you can before making an escape. This is my first real go at the genre, and it’s excellent. It has smooth, only occasionally cumbersome combat, sound design that scratches the brain just right and robotic enemies that genuinely terrify. And it satisfies my constant need to sift through my inventory and rifle through every drawer.
But I have to keep my head on a swivel: Arc Raider’s player v player element means I can get jumped for my precious cargo by a malicious rival at any moment. And also, the knowledge that this game was made with the help of generative AI voice acting makes me slightly ashamed of how much I enjoy it. I play every game sheepishly looking over my shoulder (and my character’s) in case someone in-game takes my sought-after blueprint, or someone in real life kicks down my door to call me a hypocrite.
It’s ever more difficult to avoid AI in everyday life. Arc Raiders has become my guilty pleasure. In it, you play as a raider in post-apocalyptic Italy, living underground but regularly heading topside to scrounge for supplies, after a massive ecological event destroyed human civilisation and strange autonomous robots showed up shortly afterwards to scour the scarred landscape. These ARC can fly overhead, roll around on the ground, or leap extraordinary distances on four mechanical legs. Each is uniquely deadly.
You are woefully inadequate in a battle against most of Arc Raiders’ enemies, which means you’ll need to scurry around to avoid them, throw noisemakers to distract them, or attack as a team, with either the squad you deployed alongside or other players you convince to join you over chat. All of this is in service of the game’s one true god: loot, which you need in order to perform everything from repairing your weapons to crafting medical supplies to training your pet rooster so he can fetch items for you on the surface. And you can only keep what you successfully escape with, so if you die mid-match or fail to get to an elevator or metro car before the timer runs out, it’s all gone.
Though my first few rounds of Arc Raiders were supremely difficult and punishing (in my third match, I found several pieces of rare loot and was then ruthlessly murdered by a squad all clad in red), Embark has ensured that you can make progress fast. You can upgrade your raider’s mobility, stamina and stealthiness every time you level up, and you can earn experience through playing rounds and successfully extracting. You can recycle things into crafting materials to upgrade your weapons and shield, or sell trinkets to merchants for extra cash that will help you buy better equipment. Even after a bad round, you still get somewhere.
After every successful extraction, I want to jump right back in for more. I want more close calls, accidental explosions and terrifying sprints through ruined cities. I want to hurl more expletives over chat so that other squads know I’m in the thick of it, walk past another player blasting A Thousand Miles by Vanessa Carlton through their microphone, usher another half-dozen more people into an elevator hatch before I press the button to close the door at the last second.
Arc Raiders isn’t just fun to play. It’s a straight-up shot of serotonin.
