Punishing yet thrilling, complex yet masterable, Arc Raiders is a digital adrenaline rush like no other
As I’ve continued to sink hour after hour into Arc Raiders, I keep thinking about Paintball, a sport I’ve never spent any meaningful time with but have always been attracted to, especially as a fan of video games in which you shoot other people.
Specifically, I think about the origins of this kind of sport in which human beings willingly participate in a simulation of violent survival. In Paintball’s case, the game was sparked by an argument between a country boy, Charles Gaines, and a city boy, Hayes Noel. It became a way to settle a score between two friends: Who is better equipped to survive in the wild? It turns out the country boy fared better, as he summed up with an anecdote that almost perfectly describes a kind of interaction I’ve had a few dozen times in Arc Raiders:
Within about 20 minutes, I came around a big maple tree and Hayes was sitting on a rock. And I walked right up behind him and put the barrel of the gun right on his neck and said “alright, I don’t wanna shoot you. Who wins?”
This experience inspired the duo to gather a whole bunch of other friends to play out more survival scenarios, equipped with nonlethal, though still painful, weaponry with which to defend themselves. According to Gaines, Paintball was an exciting game of “stealth, wood skills, and strategy […] the idea of running through the woods, competing and symbolically surviving, those go way back into our genetic development.”
Arc Raiders, I’m convinced, taps into similar things, lighting up a primal part of the brain that is both thrilled and terrified about entering a dangerous area to earn rewards, establish victory, and get out alive. Of course, Arc Raiders’ arsenal is way more diverse and, of course, mercifully free of any physical pain from getting shot.
Losing though? Damn, that sting is something you still have to learn to deal with. If you’re up for the mental challenge of tolerating devastating losses baked into a thrilling set of third-person shooter encounters, Arc Raiders has distilled that distinctive combination into a single package like few other games out there.
© Screenshot: Embark Studios / Claire Jackson / Kotaku
Arc Raiders is a PvPvE extraction shooter set in the late 2100s following two world-ending events: A complete ecological collapse that destroyed human civilization as we know it, and the arrival of deadly, autonomous machines that have made it all but impossible to recover from the collapse.
No one knows where these machines—Arc as they’re referred to—came from. They were beaten back once before but have now returned with more sophisticated, deadlier designs. Humanity’s only option for survival is to live below the surface while brave pioneers, Raiders, venture Topside to collect resources and manage what few elements of human infrastructure remain.
Players take on the role of Raiders as they accomplish quests related to the survival of the underground community known as Speranza, while also grabbing items with which to craft various weapons, gadgets, and restorative items.
Back-of-the-box quote:
“Get ready to lose…all your shit!”
Developer:
Embark Studios
Type of game:
Third-person extraction shooter.
Liked:
Unpredictable gameplay, engaging progression systems, fantastic stealth and shooting scenarios.
Disliked:
Crafting menus are cumbersome to navigate.
Platforms:
PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Windows PCs (played).
Release date:
October 30, 2025
Played:
60 hours, mostly running solo.
This perpetual task of gathering and crafting represents one half of the game: inventory management. Flipping through menus, breaking found items down, combining them to build an assortment of resources. These are the vegetables you have to eat before the main course of shooting and survival.
The other part of the game, the meat and potatoes, is all the shooting and survival you have to engage in to acquire that stuff and, crucially, to hang on to what you’ve laid claim to.
In each match, you’ll have roughly 15 to 30 minutes on one of the game’s four different maps, set in different regions of post-apocalyptic Italy. Your goal is to grab what you can and leave before the timer runs out, or before someone guns you down–be it a machine patrolling the surface, or another player looking to take your stuff.
It is the “sport” of third-person shooters I have long hungered for.
If you make it back home alive, you keep everything you found. Die, and it’s all left behind, now potentially loot for someone else.
Other players don’t have to be your enemies, strictly speaking, but whether or not you engage in PvP isn’t entirely up to you. When two un-partied players catch sight of each other in Arc Raiders, a kind of prisoner’s dilemma unfolds: Is this person a threat? Can they be trusted? Will you ever feel safe taking your eyes off of them? How should you split the loot you collectively find?
After a healthy amount of time spent in-game, Arc Raiders has thoroughly won me over with its slow-paced, tactical third-person shooting and its satisfying perpetual game of collecting Things™. But it’s that social game that sparks between two random players that has become the most engaging aspect for me. I rarely hop on a mic to chat, but thankfully Arc Raiders has an emote system that includes a decent range of options, enough for me to get a first impression of someone and decide if I feel safe traveling with them for the remainder of the game.
All of these unpredictable elements—what loot is available at any given time, what Arc are present and in what locations, whether other players are friendly or dangerous—combine to create a machine that generates interesting situations and memorable encounters.
Escape sequences, tense sniper battles, close-quarters showdowns with SMGs and shotguns, stealthy infiltrations of loot-filled locales, quests to hunt and take down a tough-as-nails and well-armed Arc; these and other scenarios just spontaneously happen in a game of Arc Raiders. It’s all unscripted and entirely reliant on the mixture of whatever and whoever is on the map and what their agendas are, be it questing, looting, or intentionally hunting down other players.
© Screenshot: Embark Studios / Claire Jackson / Kotaku
Gone is the safety of a single-player campaign with checkpoints and forgiving Game Over screens. Gone are the prescribed rules of engagement of traditional PvP, in which you’re forced to engage in a firefight with specific win/lose conditions. Here, it’s all live and in the moment. You, by yourself or with two other squad members, are fighting, literally, to hang onto what you’ve laid claim to. You don’t just raise your gun while infiltrating an area because it looks cool, you do so because that gun is a tool for your survival and there’s no telling what’s around the next corner.
I’m convinced this game taps into some kind of primal fight-or-flight mechanism in the brain. For some, Arc Raiders will always be too stressful as a result. For other kinds of sickos, it’s the thrill of third-person shooting straight from the tap.
As I continued to sink hour after hour of my time into Arc Raiders, it has felt like this was the experience I’ve been training for by playing and loving the hell out of tactical third-person shooters for so long, especially those with a bit of a survival bent. The risk associated with losing what I’ve found triggers an adrenaline rush of a kind I think is only possible in this specific genre of extraction shooters, and Arc Raiders is one of the best executions of this format. Though it is also a live-service game of a sort and thus could, in time, evolve in ways that fundamentally alter its identity, as long as Arc Raiders remains what it is right now, I have no need for any other online shooter. It is the “sport” of third-person shooters I have long hungered for.
Raiders of a Lost Age
© Screenshot: Embark Studios / Claire Jackson / Kotaku
As an extraction shooter, Arc Raiders gives you a healthy selection of maps to enter and leave, hopefully wealthier than you were when you came in. The four maps present at launch provide a smorgasbord of post-apocalyptic scenes against which a variety of violent an endless assortment of stealthy scenarios can play out. Upon successful extraction, you keep what you found and you’re rewarded with XP to invest in your skill trees, as well as “Cred” which you can use to progress the game’s battle passes, or “Raider Decks,” as the game calls them. Currently there is only one Deck available; it’s free and can reward you with both cosmetics as well as in-game items.
Out in the field, you’ll encounter wide open spaces spotted with broken-down machines from a battle fought long ago, as well as abandoned buildings with winding staircases and long stretches of vacant hallways adorned with rust, peeling paint, and signs and symbols from a forgotten age. It all constitutes an endless labyrinth of faded ruin for you to traverse. Weather conditions and changes in the time of day make the maps feel varied and fresh.
There’s loot around every corner. You frequently have to break into locked caches, which itself is risky given the amount of noise it makes and time it takes to sort through a bunch of junk with the hope of finding that one piece of rusted gear you need to improve your crafting skills back home, or to kit out a new gun that will hopefully do a better job of keeping you alive.
You can also take on specific quests, some of which fill you in on a bit of lore. You learn why there are abandoned, destroyed Arc machines in certain areas, and where the community of Speranza gets its water and other resources from. You’ll often have to go out to specific locations to gather key items, or to activate essential infrastructural elements. Completing these quests will see you earn loot from the quest giver in addition to whatever you found during your trip.
You’re not just mindlessly mowing down enemies to see damage numbers fill the screen.
The quests are hardly riveting on their own, and often feature vague descriptions of where you’re supposed to go which can be frustrating, but it also forces you to observe your surroundings in a refreshing way–you’re not just chasing waypoints on a HUD. Arc Raiders wants you to actually be observant. One quest asked me to find a room in a building with a beautiful view of the map. What does that even mean? Well, I ran around the building until finally I came upon a window that, to me anyway, looked like it offered quite a pretty view. I audibly quoted a young Ellie, and searched the room to find my objective. And find it I did!
These quests mostly consist of the same “go here, grab this thing, flip this switch” objectives, but even that can spark thrilling encounters given the unpredictability of what can happen when you encounter another player and the randomness of which of the game’s Arc menaces might be patrolling the area at that moment.
© Screenshot: Embark Studios / Claire Jackson / Kotaku
Different points of interest on each of the maps hold the promise of greater or lesser loot. And there are a variety of keys you can find to unlock hidden areas. Naturally, the areas with better loot are often the most dangerous, either because there’s a more aggressive Arc presence in that area, or because other players like yourself are heeding the call of better loot as well.
Shoot (or sneak) to survive; survive to subsist on your loot
There’s a ton of loot and items in Arc Raiders and, like in many games, it’s all color coded: Gray items are at the bottom, green items are better, blue even better. Purple is sick and gold is GOAT. If we’re talking about guns, then obviously a purple gun will be more desirable than a green. And if we’re talking about crafting ingredients, green crafting items are used to build better stuff than gray ones.
© Screenshot: Embark Studios / Claire Jackson / Kotaku
In Arc Raiders, you’ll kit yourself out with an “Augment,” which will affect the kind of shield you can wear, as well as the size of your inventory. You’ll always have access to a free version that gives you enough loot space for a run, as well as a gun with ammo. Unless you’re specifically interested in doing so, there’s no reason to spawn onto a map with just your fists.
Once you’re out on the field, Arc Raiders plays like many semi-realistic shooters. Characters are intentionally a little weighty and slow in how they move and shoot. Think The Last of Us, Metal Gear Solid, or Resident Evil 4 and not, say, Vanquish, Warframe, or Max Payne. Add in the essential and finite nature of loot, and the game reminds me often of a survival horror game, just without screaming monsters (though you’ll learn to fear some of these machines for sure).
Read More: Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater: The Kotaku Review
Arc Raiders’ enemies, specifically the computer-controlled ones known as Arc, pose a deadly threat. Many of them fly and can easily get new angles on you, and they’re equipped with weapons that can finish you off in no time.
By having its AI antagonists serve the role of patrolmen on the field, Arc Raiders keeps you on edge, always on the lookout for their presence. But as dangerous as they are, damn, are they also fun to shoot. Metal parts fly off of them as bullets collide with their armor; the drone variety in particular satisfyingly spins and sputters when taking shots. As I’ve mentioned before, it reminds me of another IRL sport: Clay pigeon shooting.
You’re not just mindlessly mowing down enemies to see damage numbers fill the screen. You have to place your shots well to destroy key parts of the Arc, while also being aware of their specific capabilities. The Leaper, for instance, can jump across vast distances and ignore difficult terrain to get to you.
© Screenshot: Embark Studios / Claire Jackson / Kotaku
Arc make for a satisfying foe. Because they’re machines, they’re not constantly repeating the same canned lines of dialogue like enemies in other shooters often do. And their patrol patterns feel believable for a force that exists solely to keep you off the map. They’re not just masked NPCs that exist to walk back and forth forever. And their behavior, which in some cases was built using machine learning, is wildly unpredictable in a satisfying way.
Your other threats, though? Those would be your fellow human beings. They’re not just for shooting at, or for contests measuring who has the better collection of loot. They’re sometimes for forming uneasy alliances with, and the social game of determining whether to cooperate or compete with someone rarely plays out the same way twice. You might roll out on a map to do some solo looting, only to find yourself a new ally who’ll join you. Maybe they’ll even have a key to a place you haven’t been to yet. (And don’t worry if you’re mic-shy; you can ping what items are in your inventory to say things like “I have a key for this location” without ever needing to say a word.)
Once, I grouped up with two other players who had one goal in mind: “We’re gonna take down a Leaper,” they told me. So I followed them to a bunker one of them pointed out. We dug in and opened fire on a nearby Leaper, took it down, grabbed its loot and then took down another team who tried to take advantage of us when we weren’t looking.
© Screenshot: Embark Studios / Claire Jackson / Kotaku
Another time I grouped up with a single random person on my quest to reach the Control Tower in Dam Battlegrounds, a promising location for loot. I had a key, but when we ascended the top, I found the door had been barred by a player-made Door Blocker. You can break these, but you’ll make an awful lot of noise in the process, and anyone lurking on the other end of that door will know you’re coming. I jammed my pickaxe into the door to start breaching it while my newly found comrade covered my back. We broke in to find no enemy players. Instead, a bunch of hostile Arc called “Pops” which just, well, pop with a deadly explosion right in front of you, poured down a staircase right to us. We took them out and then cautiously, room-by-room, stalked and searched the perimeter for whoever had blocked that door. Turns out they were long gone, but they did leave some decent loot for us to claim.
And while you always want to hang on to your loot, given that Arc Raiders’ is an extraction shooter, dying and losing your stuff is just a standard part of the game’s inherently entropic nature. You can lose things just as easily as you found them, and guns and other items also have durability meters you need to keep an eye on.
But if you die and your gun goes on to someone else, you’re also contributing to the economy of the game overall. That great shotgun you leveled up and kitted out? Lose it and now it’s someone else’s great shotgun that they’ll go cause some chaos with. Lately, I’ve taken to offloading my overflowing inventory by just gifting players better guns I made, which will hopefully aid them in their future fights.
PvP in Arc Raiders is an endless pendulum of conflict and cooperation. Sometimes you can sway which direction it’s going in, while at other times you need to learn how to move with it or get the hell out of the way.
© Screenshot: Embark Studios / Claire Jackson / Kotaku
But when you’re not negotiating the terms of your survival with other players, or engaging in thrilling firefights with or against them, you’re back home, tinkering away with an inventory system that, as of now, is decent enough at letting you sort through your junk. But know that this is itself a time commitment.
The ‘joys’ of menu diving
Some quick back-of-the-napkin math tells me I’ve probably spent about a third of my time in Arc Raiders sorting through the menu system. Any engagement with this game also necessitates hours spent moving things around on a grid, combining them, breaking them down, and crafting them into new stuff. A strict cap on how much stuff you can stash away (you can level your stash up to a max of 256 items) means that you have to use your stuff rather than just hoarding all of it. If you have a tendency to be a pack mule, prepare for frequent back-and-forth to clear out enough space.
The menu systems are serviceable, though they could stand to be improved. Crafting, for example, requires you to back out of your inventory screen to go to a specific workshop menu. It would be great if you could just craft more of a given object by right-clicking on it and selecting a “Craft” option but, at present, that isn’t there. There’s also no way to lock or mark an item to avoid accidentally selling or destroying it. Furthermore, some of the language, specifically around items whose only use is seemingly to be broken down into crafting materials, is vague. A Rusted Gear, for instance, might tell you that its only purpose is to “be recycled into crafting materials,” but you’ll soon find out that Rusted Gears are needed to upgrade your gun workshop.
‘It can’t be for nothing’
Shooting, surviving, navigating social situations with other players, hell, even collecting and crafting all present satisfying game loops that can just theoretically go on forever in Arc Raiders. And eventually, everyone will have access to better loot. So the nature of how lethal other players are in this game will ebb and flow. But what’s it all for?
© Screenshot: Embark Studios / Claire Jackson / Kotaku
It’s not for nothing. Right now, your ultimate goal in Arc Raiders is to invest in what it calls “Projects,” where you dedicate tons of found loot into building a caravan to send your Raider off to unknown frontiers.
It’s a narrative wrapping for a mechanic very common in survival games and other extraction shooters: A server wipe.
Because players can amass such incredible arsenals of weaponry and gear, a server wipe is a necessary controlled burn of its loot forest, a way to tame the lethality that will surely spiral out of control and descend into strict metas that, I’d argue, are antithetical to the experience of the game.
But Embark Studios has chosen not to enforce a strict time for a global wipe. Instead, you opt into wiping by sending off your character, all their loot, and all of their skill tree and workshop upgrade progress. You’ll get some XP bonuses and crafting bonuses for doing so, as well as some extra points to invest in a new skill tree based on the value of what you had in your stash.
At the time of writing, no one can send their character off. The window to do so will be a timed event.
The game also features trials that reset every week featuring challenges like damaging certain Arc foes and searching specific loot caches. As you progress through these trials, you’ll ascend a publicly viewable leaderboard to track your global progress against that of everyone else playing the game.
But perhaps what is most unknown right now is where the story of Arc Raiders is going. No one in-universe seems to know where the Arc came from. It is thought that some humans managed to jump ship and leave Earth as the environment fell apart, which has led fans to speculate that the Arc were actually sent here by now-extraterrestrial humans looking to mine what’s left of the planet for their own survival elsewhere.
© Screenshot: Embark Studios / Claire Jackson / Kotaku
Certain quests indicate that Arc behavior is changing, but the NPC quest givers are just as concerned with making sure everyone in Speranza has drinkable water and a decent supply of food as they are with tracking mysterious Arc behavior.
There’s a lot of potential in Arc Raiders’ story, and in what future challenges it can introduce. We know from the game’s 2025 road map that a new Arc will arrive, presumably bringing with it new morsels of narrative to fuel the mystery of their origin..
Arc Raiders will naturally evolve as its various systems develop. Right now, however, it’s a stunning offering of eustress-inducing shootouts with very real consequences for failure as you take on unpredictable enemy players, cooperate with allies, and face down the cunning threats posed by the game’s excellent enemy AI. For those with an appetite for hunting and gathering, Arc Raiders promises an endless supply of loot to find and work with, all set in gorgeous maps brought to life with incredible sound design that conveys information as much as it entertains the ear with its satisfying sounds of clanging metal and rummaging through crates of stuff, as well as the compelling but terrifying digital chirps and songs of the Arc when they spot you.
© Screenshot: Embark Studios / Claire Jackson / Kotaku
But it is a punishing game. You will have to confront your own sense of failure, and the frustration that comes from getting sniped out of the blue or taken down by a sudden swarm of AI drones. Arc Raiders rarely eases up the pressure it puts on you. For some, that’s likely to be a dealbreaker. But if you’re game for something thrilling and you’re willing to tolerate loss, Arc Raiders is one of the most approachable and engaging examples of the extraction shooter yet.
