What defines an extraction shooter, and why does the gaming community generally dislike it?
Message for Deimos or anyone else on Tildes development
I'm putting this here after writing the rest of my post, but could we please get an "expand edit window" option, unless there is one and I'm blind? The preview window's great but the edit window's locked to 6 lines and I would appreciate some more since it would make editing a long post like this much easier. Thanks.
The actual post
There has been a lot of gaming buzz regarding extraction shooters as of late, with the closed alpha of Bungie's Marathon currently underway, the second tech test of Embark Studio's ARC Raiders starting just now, and the recent news of the cancellation of a Titanfall extraction shooter from EA/Respawn. As someone who's played and enjoyed extraction shooters before I've been following these and observing the discourse surrounding them (except the Titanfall one, I didn't even know that was a thing til the news of its cancellation) and I've been somewhat dismayed to see a lot of confusion, mixed messaging, and general disdain for the genre. So I've decided to put my own thoughts and definitions of it down here, and clear up the most common misconceptions or falsehoods I've seen repeated ad nauseam elsewhere.
A brief introduction to extraction shooters
First off, what IS an extraction shooter, what makes it different from other shooters, notably battle royales, and which games qualify as extraction shooters? An extraction shooter, as its core gameplay loop, is a shooter where you enter a map with loot and AI enemies scattered about, and the goal is to gather loot and extract from the map with it. However, you need to get out alive - should you die, you will lose everything (with some exceptions) in your inventory, including the gear you went in with. On top of that, the most popular and successful extraction shooters are PvEvP - you will be competing with other real players for loot, and taking loot off their bodies can be just as profitable if not more so than taking it from PvE enemies. It is optional though, and it is entirely viable to play as a "rat", sneaking around and gathering loot without drawing attention and extracting without anyone noticing.
Not a battle royale
Extraction shooters are also frequently confused with battle royales as both games have players inserted into a PvP map where they scavenge gear. However, the similarities more or less end there. With battle royales, you do not risk losing your items on death as all players are dropped in with nothing and don't have a stash to draw from or store items in, so any "loot" found is merely a means of securing victory for the current round. PvP is also mandatory, as the goal is not to get loot but to be the last team/person standing. To facilitate this in a timely manner, battle royales have a shrinking map mechanic that forces the remaining players into a smaller playable area as time goes on to force them into a confrontation. Extraction shooters do not force PvP or have shrinking maps but do have their own ways of drawing players towards each other, through loot-rich points of interest and extraction zones. Some parts of the map will have greater quality and/or quantity of loot, which will naturally draw players in, and there are a few designated areas where you can actually leave with your loot which will also increase your odds of encountering other players either trying to take your loot before you can leave, or trying to leave themselves. Because it is not forced though, PvP encounters are a much more unpredictable and organic experience in extraction shooters.
What extraction shooters are out there?
So which games count as extraction shooters? The current leaders in the genre, which also happen to be some of the longest-lasting ones, are Escape From Tarkov (EFT) and Hunt: Showdown. EFT is a rather hardcore modern military FPS with a heavy focus on realism - guns are extremely customizable, ammo types and armor can make a huge difference, bullets are extremely lethal even from AI enemies, and a good headshot will drop even the most geared and armored player so there's always risk. It has a cult following but its hardcore emphasis makes it unapproachable for most. It also has periodic progression wipes where players have to start over from scratch to keep things fresh and more fair for newcomers, but is a major turnoff for players that don't like to lose what they've earned. Hunt is an FPS set at the end of the 19th century with a bit of dark magic/voodoo theme. Guns are reflective of the times and rather limited in terms of rate of fire and reload speed, which results in more drawn-out firefights where every bullet counts. For each round, the focus isn't to get loot around the map but rather to track and hunt down a bounty boss monster, then extract with that bounty. These two games are what will come to mind first when extraction shooters are mentioned, EFT more so.
I won't go over cancelled (Titanfall), discontinued (The Cycle: Frontier), or side game-mode (The Division's dark zone/survival) extraction shooters here, which is basically almost all of them sadly, so I'll talk about the two biggest up-and-coming ones instead, Marathon and ARC Raiders.
Marathon and the surrounding controversy
Marathon is a sci-fi FPS that uses the lore of Bungie's Marathon trilogy from the 90's as its setting. You play as a "runner" in a robotic shell scavenging the remains of the colony on Tau Ceti IV for scrap to fulfill contracts for the megacorporations involved in the colony's development who now seek to find out what went wrong. It checks the usual boxes for an extraction shooter - you go in with your own loadout, scavenge at points of interest to fill your limited inventory, defeat PvE enemies and other runners for loot opportunities, and try to extract alive before time's up. There are a couple things of note that have resulted in mixed opinions:
- The art direction for runners, gear, and architecture is a sort of mass-produced, neon-colored, smoothed plastic, blocky style, which is a "love it or hate it" kind of thing.
- The gunplay is very similar to that of Destiny, Bungie's last game, which in my opinion is very solid. However, they did make the decision to have mouse magnetism enabled for PC (your cursor will magnetize to targets) to give it more parity with console players, and that has been very unpopular.
- The only queueing option is teams of 3 and the devs have stood their ground on not having a solo or duo player queue, which is a turn-off for players that prefer solo, or don't want to play with randoms and don't have 2 friends to play with.
- Players do not have full customization of their runners but must choose from 6 runner archetypes that have a set of abilities and a specific look, which can be partially changed with a skin. This is also largely unpopular, as Bungie's past titles have featured high levels of cosmetic customization and this feels largely restrictive and monetization-focused instead.
- There is no option for proximity voice chat, which the devs have said was excluded to protect players from toxicity. This has also proved to be very unpopular.
- It will have seasonal progression wipes which will reset faction reputation and clean out player vaults, which is unpopular among players that like to hoard their loot, especially many Destiny players.
- Supposedly there will be more "raid-like" PvE experiences on an as-of-yet unreleased map that takes place aboard the Marathon colony ship, but how mechanically complex those are or whether or not that will be enough to attract PvE-oriented players is pure speculation at this point.
- It will not be free-to-play, but rather released at a "premium" but not full game price point, which most people are assuming to be $40 USD.
The game is set to release in September this year, but based on the feedback Bungie is getting from players in this very first alpha, they will need to take this feedback very seriously and make a number of changes in the few months they have left, or risk a very rocky release and potentially financial failure. Many players seem to want Marathon and Bungie to fail, notably vitriolic Destiny veterans that feel like they were snubbed out of Destiny 3 for this, but as someone with over 2000 hours in Destiny 2 myself I want it to succeed, whether I play it or not. I'd rather there be more fun and successful games than major failures, and wishing for something to fail just because it isn't what you want is incredibly petty.
ARC Raiders, the underdog
ARC Raiders is a third person shooter set in a post-apocalypse where robots called ARC have devastated the surface of Earth and humanity has retreated underground, sending "raiders" to the surface to scavenge for tech and goods. It's developed by Embark Studios, which is made up of ex-DICE (Battlefield) developers, and their other title is the well-received but niche PvP shooter The Finals. Mechanics-wise, there isn't anything particularly unique about this extraction shooter - limited mobility, limited inventory space, PvE enemies, points of interest, extraction points, etc. However, it seems to check all the boxes of what players want and it does it well while making the experience more casual and accessible:
- There are "safe pockets" where players can store a few loot items they won't lose on death (Tarkov does also have this, Marathon and Hunt do not).
- There is proximity voice, and also a quick emote menu for giving vocal commands, directions, and responses.
- The art direction is realistic post-apocalypse with high graphical fidelity and semi-futuristic robots, which is "safe", but still good looking.
- The audio design is phenomenal. Distant gunfire, supersonic cracks of rounds, bullets ricocheting off surfaces, large bots stomping around from blocks away, player footsteps on different surfaces and within enclosed spaces, quadcopter drones buzzing, larger bots with unsettling and deep "roars", and more.
- There isn't a solo or duo-only queue, but there is solo-matching priority at least, so you're more likely to be placed with other solo players.
- There is a clear progression path in the form of a workshop you can upgrade with scavenged materials, and a deep skill tree with multiple branches.
- Raiders are not class or hero-based and are freely customizable by the players in terms of loadout and appearance.
- Chaff PvE enemies are relatively easy to defeat but still dangerous. Aside from eliminating them as threats, they can drop materials or items to recharge your shields so they're not just a waste of ammo. Non-chaff PvE enemies can be significantly more dangerous and harder to defeat but will have valuable loot.
- There is already an example of a PvE "boss" robot guarding a point of interest which requires some mechanics to collect the loot within it. The boss itself is very challenging to defeat, even with multiple teams fighting it, but should reward top-tier loot.
- While the game was initially announced as free-to-play, the devs have since switched to selling it at at $40 USD.
- There are "battle passes" in the game in the form of shops players can unlock using a currency that is earnable in-game, or purchased with real money (like warbonds from Helldivers 2 for any helldivers reading this).
Overall, the game is shaping up to be a more accessible extraction shooter for the wider gaming audience and very serious competition for Marathon. No official release date has been announced but they are planning on releasing some time this year.
The stigma around extraction shooters
I've mentioned various things about extraction shooters that may be contributing to their unpopularity amongst the wider gaming audience throughout the post, but for the sake of cohesiveness and for all the folks that just want a TL;DR, I will collate and expand on those ideas here:
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Confusion with battle royales - I've seen some people confuse extraction shooters with battle royales and say "the market is oversaturated with extraction shooters, dead trend chasing game" or something along those lines. It's hard to call a market oversaturated when there's only 2 successful and very niche games in it, but if you incorrectly lump all the battle royales in that makes more sense.
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Escape From Tarkov is a bad poster child - When people do think of extraction shooters (and not mistakenly battle royales), they will default to EFT, which is notoriously hardcore and "sweaty". It would be the same as never having played an RPG, and being introduced to it with Dark Souls, which would understandably turn away anyone that isn't looking for that kind of experience.
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PvP and losing progress - The game always having a PvP element is already discouraging to PvE-focused players, and this is only made worse by the chance to lose your gear if you die. Many players are strongly opposed to losing progress, and losing multiple times in a row due to other players defeating them when they just want to do PvE and get some loot is an awful experience that they don't have to have in a different type of game.
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Progression wipes are anathema to hoarders - On top of potentially losing progress on a round-to-round basis, seasonal progression wipes also threaten to reset progress entirely between seasons, While they are effective at keeping things fresh, players that like to have 400+ items stored away in their vault that they will never use and just admire from time to time revile this concept. Less hoard-minded players may be concerned about their potential inability to max out their progression, the fear of missing out induced by temporary progression, or the pointlessness of even progressing if it gets wiped anyway.
I didn't read any of that, are extraction shooters for me or not?
Well, that depends. If you:
- Don't mind or enjoy a mixed PvEvP experience
- Are ok with the idea of loot and progression being temporary
- Like the higher stakes of potentially losing your inventory and gear, or taking someone else's
- Are ok with inventory management, even in the middle of a round
- Are not terrible at shooters
Then yes, extraction shooters may be fun for you! They certainly aren't for everyone, and there's nothing wrong with not enjoying one or the genre in general, but if you do, they offer a very unique gaming experience. If you are interested, keep an eye on ARC Raiders and Marathon - they aim to be more accessible than previous extraction shooters and it's a lot easier to get in on a new game than join one with a veteran playerbase.
This is a such phenomenal, high-effort post. We can’t exemplary topics on the site, so consider this comment to be its own label for your words. Imagine that they now have a lovely blue stripe next to them. They deserve it!
I’m someone who has heard the term “extraction shooter” before but genuinely had no idea what it actually meant. Your explanation was incredibly informative and did a fantastic job of giving me the full picture. You didn’t just define the genre in the abstract; you gave details about specific games and tied all your information in to the wider cultural context and perception of the genre.
Bravo! I learned a lot from your post. Thank you for taking the time to write all this out for us.
I'd like to support the confusion between battle royal and extraction shooter. They share enough in common (spawn, gather loot, fight players, steal loot) that it's perfectly reasonable for most people to lump them together (extraction shooter is a battle royal where the map doesn't shrinks). It's like claiming gala and boscop apple are not both just apples. You are allowed to like one and not the other, but you shouldn't complain that they are lumped together by most people when most people don't care about the nuance between them.
Of course, thank you for the high effort post anyway, it was fun reading about your special interest and you explained your point of view very clearly.
I suppose the most important difference between a battle royale and an extraction shooter isn't what they do with the loot or maps, but the "win" condition for each, the end goal for the player. Battle royales are all about being the last one standing and claiming victory over others, while extraction shooters are about surviving and increasing your wealth and growth. To borrow your apple analogy, one is an eating apple and the other is a cider apple. They're both apples, but they have different ways of being enjoyed which can't be discerned from just looking at them.
It's hard to explain to people because permadeath/gameover as a genre mechanic is mostly frowned upon, but if you've ever played any traditional crawl style game, it's basically that same rush of 'oh man i've really gotten this character off the ground' or 'wow I can now reliably get started without being terrified of every corner'.
It's a really fun experience, but it starts with learning to lose, and realizing that the game is designed around it, and it's not the end of the world. If you can trust the system and give it a shot, these things can often wind up super fun.
Unfortunately the naturally competitive nature extraction shooters bring to the mix can make it extra rough, as "oh i screwed up and should've run from that ogre" in crawl is your fault, but "This guy knows some line that I had no idea existed and smoked me" feels so much worse.
This is the reason why I don’t find multiplayer shooters to be fun. Multiplayer games are only really fun if you’re on the same level, but with shooters you have an advantage if you are extremely familiar with the map. You can become competitive by playing a lot until you know all the “tricks”, but that’s a major time investment that would require you to suffer a lot of losses before you can even dream of getting there.
I think onboarding players to the higher levels is something games should put more focus on, with training that's teaching you what the better players are doing and better replay analysis. That said we do live in an age where learning these things even through the internet is easier than it ever was.
Still, I get your point, and it's why I've been keeping a huge eye on Due Process, which is akin to R6 Siege. Maps are procedurally generated each game. They have consistent things about them (banks will have a vault, security, foyer, etc), but there's enough randomness every game that it's not just "oh i watched a pro play and now I know about this gap here, here, and here that covers most of your angles" because the rooms will have different layouts/sizes/walls/etc.
It seems to have nailed the map proc gen sweet spot for the genre and I hope we see it more moving forward.
That said I do think a huge part of an extraction shooter is learning the map (it's the progression you keep when you die) so I don't know if it's a perfect match for that genre.
I've been keeping my eye on all this so thanks for the great breakdown. I liked hunt but didn't love that later in the game the NPC's were mostly a joke and the weapons eventually kinda got around the expected downsides of clunky loud things with long reload and HIGH commitment.
I'm VERY keen for marathon (which will be it's own post) so I'll mostly comment on that:
Personally love it. I don't love the 'loud' runner aesthetic that's been popular in games like apex legend, where everyone looks like they're trying to be an influencer, but so far only one of them leans hard on that, and the rest of it I adore. This comes from a huge fan of the older marathon games, and I really think this style 'fits' for lots of clever reasons, but I'm not sure if anyone will care enough for it to stick.
I'm not in the alpha, so can only speak from watching others play, but it seems a lot better than that? One of my favorite decisions for marathon so far has been "guns are guns". There's no uber rare version with X ammo that reaps through beginners and only eventually kills good players. The TTK seems to be in that perfect sweet spot of "always be careful because you can be dropped" but not "oh god i got jumped and died instantly". In comparison I felt that destiny was EXTREMELY RPG heavy, where actual gunplay matters less than gear, and Apex felt very very slow.
I'm mixed on this, but also hopeful that part of the reason will revolve around what's going to happen with the raid like mechanics.
I'm not sure if you mean just aesthetic customization, but from what i've seen a TON of your "build" comes from gold mods that you find on runs which will modify how your runner plays pretty extensively. Stuff like have a second jump, run faster with knife out, etc. Both generic and specific to certain kinds of runners. The footage i'm seeing most people say they're currently decently generous with this stuff, to the point players have 2 or 3 backup kits of gold mods for their various runners.
Saw something today where I guess the devs said they're going to try to get it added, and the main issues now are just overcoming technical and legal hurdles.
Conversely I think this is the way to go. Again I like that it's not just about who has been grinding the most. When these games become second jobs to even pretend to have an even playing field it's brutal.
I think this is going to be the big "selling point" for a lot of people. Marathon has a HISTORY with its story telling and they're currently alluding to a lot and showing nothing of what people like me have been waiting for. It is confirmed that aliens are in the game, so I'm hoping that despite all previous games (halo and destiny) they'll somehow stay true to the original Marathon vibe of "dear god you're just the biggest ant on the anthill" level of scope. I'm assuming that might be why the 3 man requirement, and am hoping they managed to do something unique in the genre, rather than just "another extraction shooter" (Which is currently looks to be, but does look like the only one I'd put time on even now).
I, mostly, prefer this. As always depends on how they monetize down the line, but F2P almost always translates to predatory tactics, often backed by selling power.
Seconded. I'd love a slightly more robust editor for longer posts. Right now I just bash them out in vscode/helix as a .md and copy them over if I'm doing anything serious, but I don't NEED all that power, just a few additions. It would have made responding to this post cleanly much easier as well. Expanding the reply edit window has to be done carefully so you don't drag the control off the edge of the window. Which means dragging down, scrolling to the new bottom, repeat 3 or 4x. I'd also kill to have the preview window just next to the reply window (much like RES), as it makes making high quality posts so much easier when you can quickly see what markdown mistakes you've made.
Like say the 4 i made in this by not putting another linebreak between the quotes...i fixed them before posting, but it's annoying to have to hope to preview, then hop back, then scroll through and find where you screwed up, and repeat.
Thank you for the post!
Tarkov is enthralling, but I can’t ever bring myself to go back. The game was already pay-to-win (paying more money grants the player a bigger stash and safe container) but they recently added a $500 “Unheard” edition that lets owners move freely past AI enemies. On top of that, an infamous video confirmed the presence of at least one cheater in ~60% of all game lobbies, completely killing my motivation to play. It makes sense; since you’re risking a loadout each time you play a match, the incentive to cheat is very high.
The Cycle: Frontier also dealt quite heavily with cheaters, and even formed a dedicated anti-cheat team during the early days of its first season. They did a lot right, and even let players generate the premium currency for free by building a base upgrade. For whatever reason, the game never found its footing, and fizzled out after Season 3.
Hunt: Showdown has achieved success by diluting Tarkov’s formula; dying in Hunt doesn’t really set you back. To me, though, the risk is what’s compelling about an extraction shooter – hopefully Marathon can strike a better balance.
Thanks for a link to that video. It's fascinating.
As cheating gets more extreme, i'm wondering if we'll finally see more devs trying to "honeypot" cheaters. Something like completely invisible characters who can only be picked up by cheat software that thinks there's something there. How you'd accomplish that without the cheat engine knowing that's what's going on is probably difficult, if not impossible, but it'd be a lovely way to help flag suspicious play for review by humans.
I really think more and more these competitive games are going to have to be built from the ground up with an anticheat framework in mind. Much like how a modern fighting game MUST have rollback netcode for anyone to take it seriously, other genre's are going to have to start treating anticheat as a core system functionality with a suite of built in tools designed specifically for it, rather than "oh yeah here's the basics and we'll just patch on later".
I hadn't heard of the Unheard edition, just sad to see them continually going down the pay to win route.
I played Tarkov on and off for a year during covid and felt like I got my money's worth, and even then with the base game it felt like buying the high tier edition for the better case would have been worth it for how many hours I was getting out of the game. It was great playing with friends and learning the maps. I felt like if it had come out during high school, I would have spent all my time playing that instead of League of Legends.
I like the genre and would love to play it more, but don't have the time or a computer that would run it well anymore. They released a co-op mode, which would be the only way I'd probably play it after my friends had told me how fun the single player mod that was popular can be.
I was unfamiliar with the term "extraction shooter", but aside from the PvP part Deep Rock Galactic seem to fit the bill quite well (at least my memory of it from 3-4? years ago). The premise in that game is that you are a space dwarf and you go down to a planet to extract ores while attacked by local fauna and complete missions. The missions can be things like defend a drill from enemy onslaughts, find and kill a particular bug etc. etc. From my recollection it was fairly high paced, but at the time there was no PvP. The game was a coop shooter where people could play different classes with somewhat unique abilities and play styles. After each mission you brought home loot and could spend it on various upgrades.
Would DRG be considered an extraction shooter or something else?
DRG would not be considered an extraction shooter as one of the defining features of an extraction shooter is the increased stakes of losing the gear you bring with you on a round if you lose, not just the loot you find. DRG also lacks lootable equipment on its maps, as equipment is limited to the loadout you choose at the start of a round, which you cannot lose. DRG would be considered a class-based co-op FPS.
I've tried Helldivers 2 and Dark and Darker, neither of which really fully qualifies as an extraction shooter, but didn't enjoy either. Dark and Darker was unfun bc I'd typically get merced by someone before I can see them even when trying to rat. I didn't give Helldivers 2 much a chance because I refunded it as soon as I saw a battle pass in a game I already paid for. I was bored with the first several missions though.
I'd like to enjoy one, I play a wide variety of genres, but the market hasn't revealed one for me yet. ARC is a non-starter with a battle pass on top of the initial price, Marathon is a non-starter since Bungie bans Linux players. I look forward to the genre's growth if it can escape battle passes.
Helldivers 2 is considered to be the gold standard for including battlepasses because additional purchases aren't necessary at all. The rates of earning in-game credits to buy new ones is very reasonable to the point that additional purchases are really just paying for time-skips. I can't think of any other game that comes close to having battlepasses be so reasonable.
But also if Destiny is any indication, then Marathon should be right out. Those games had some of the worst MTX schemes out there, worse than battlepasses.
Crucially, Helldivers' battle pass does not expire. They are perpetually available and unlockable whenever you choose.
Generally, just playing the game semi-regularly allows you to keep up to date with new releases without paying. That's how generous the ingame currency earnings are.
It's the least predatory battle pass out there.
@Flashfall they have or are addressing the slowly rotating shop. Arrowhead agreed the shop became too large for such a low quantity long duration rotation. I remember reading something about this right around the Killzone collab.
Agree with the battle passes in Helldivers and also the monetization from Bungie. I've purchased multiple expansions and season passes for Destiny 2 and while I don't regret my purchases since I had a great time with friends, Bungie really does continually push its players into buying more content, and then they had to go and take a sledgehammer to their community's trust by even removing some of that paid content from the game. I'm not optimistic about Marathon's monetization at all, but I think ARC Raiders will manage it nicely if they emulate Helldivers (except for the very small rotating window of cosmetics ugh, why make some things unavailable for months or more?).
FOMO drives sales. It's slightly less duplicitous than premium currency bundles with just less than you need for the skin or whatever you want. Both of these tactics are being considered for regulation in the EU, so here's hoping.
In theory, I want to like extraction shooters, but every one I've played, I've felt a little directionless due to the lack of an overall goal or being able to "win" a match. I recognize this is a me problem. I'm hoping that Marathon can grab me possibly with the yet to be revealed maps. I did get into the alpha and I think the base gameplay is very solid, I do love the aesthetics and presentation of the game, but the issue I was running into is that my teammates would NEVER communicate. It was frustrating having a contract to go to x zone on the map, but your teammates won't talk to coordinate so you don't know where they have to go, they might have to go across the map, and then suddenly you're either split up or you just don't do your objective that match. I found that part pretty frustrating, which is a shame because the fights were fun! For me personally, this game will ride or die on how good the narrative, the "raid like" experience is on the Marathon map, the lore, etc. I'm a HUUUUUUGE Destiny fan, so I'm hoping it can tap into that a bit, but I accept that it probably won't (and I certainly don't blame Marathon for Destiny's current state, in fact I do want Marathon to be successful regardless if I like it or not).
I did see Arc Raiders yesterday and signed up to be in the test, I'd like to try that out. I liked the look of it, but it's impossible to know if I'd like it before playing.
In the conversation on solo queue vs not solo queue, I'm very split. On one hand, allowing solos can attract more players to the game and I personally like solo queue for times where I only have an hour to play and I'm kinda stressed and don't want to talk to people. On the other hand, designing a game to work for both solo queue and trios could be kind of hard and I can understand how a developer might not want to compromise the group play experience for solos. One of my main thoughts during the Marathon alpha was that "if this game came out in like 2009 when everyone still used microphones in games, this would be crazy". Some of my best experiences in Destiny 2 have been from raiding with strangers and people actually using their microphones. I think I would have a lot more fun with Marathon if people did. This is also fixed if I have friends to play with, but I was the only one I know that got into the alpha (out of my 50 or so destiny friends) and who knows how many will buy the game when it comes out.
In regards to Marathon's closed alpha, I will say that while Bungie has a strong core combat system and an interesting established setting to potentially do great things with, they've stumbled a lot in communicating their intentions to both their fans and curious observers alike. It seems like they've sorely overlooked many major social aspects that would bolster a multiplayer PvP game of this nature, like lack of proximity chat making communication with both your team and potentially other teams very difficult, more conservative cosmetic options making self-expression limited, no social hub or personal space for runners to mingle or just casually idle in, and no PvE events that really require team cohesion at this time. They can say how Marathon truly shines in the 3rd and 4th maps with the raid-like events all they like, but none of that is actually being exposed to or experienced by their potential playerbase, and as such they can only react to what they've been given, which is not nearly enough to drum up new hype or hold interest for long. Bungie loves keeping secrets for players to stumble upon organically but that's only going to work if there are enough players to sustain the game long enough for said secrets to be found. They cannot afford to pull punches in their current state.
As for the solo and trio queue problem, this is actually unique to Marathon in the extraction shooter space because of their insistence on having longer TTKs, which makes it much more difficult to 1v3, and some shells having innate abilities which are just straight up better both for solo play and PvP in general, at no additional cost. To be blunt, the problem is Void and its true invisibility. There was already enough invisibility abuse in Destiny PvP from void hunters and that wasn't even true invis, you could still see a moving outline well enough. Bungie noticed that solo lobbies were all just picking Void and ratting, but there isn't really anything stopping trios from also all picking Void and ratting, but with triple the potential firepower. It might also be the case that some of the PvE events on the other maps will have mechanics that require 3 runners and that's why they're mandating it, but in doing so they really are taking the risk of losing the solo playing audience and banking entirely too much on groups of friends or LFGs, not unlike what they did in Destiny's higher-difficulty content.
Well said on all fronts. I want to trust that Bungie will make a fun game, but the alpha test is just missing some of the things it sounds like they're banking on. In its current state, I wouldn't even play for free. I like the combat (I do actually like the TTK), but that alone isn't enough, there needs to be something else. If there is on release, great! If not, a lot of players like me who want to like the game will probably just avoid it.
Tangential to this conversation: I don’t like the term “battle royale”. I don’t know where it came from but it evokes nothing in me related to video games, and makes me think of Casino Royale or royal families. “Last player standing”, although not as catchy, would be a better name for that gameplay mode. But that’s just my opinion.
Similarly, “extraction shooter” evokes in me the idea of extracting hostages. I’m not sure what else I would call it. “Looting survival” perhaps?
But then again, I don’t play shooters. Like, I just don’t. lol The last time I enjoyed playing any shooter was Counter Strike: Source, when I was a teenager. I’m not educated enough about shooters it seems.
For the record, the genre name comes from the Japanese dystopian novel and film Battle Royale, about a third-year junior high class dumped on an island by the government and forced to fight to the death until one student remains. Even the shrinking map is part of it, so I guess the game genre took even more inspiration from the book besides the "only one survivor" bit.
Also the name of the film was itself inspired by the boxing/wrestling format of a battle royal:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_royal
Though the format died off in boxing in the early 20th century and in wrestling is mostly known by the wwe brand name of royal rumble these days.
Great flick, and to expand, Battle Royale is the exact template for how basically every BR game works. I rewatched it recently and it's pretty amazing how closely the plot of the movie more or less fits the mold of how a typical BR game goes, all the way down to the desperate final showdown between competitors with a ridiculous amount of loot.
Dang. Thank you! I had no idea.
The Battle Royale genre gets its name from a Japanese movie from 2000 where the totalitatian government forces a group of junior high students to fight to the death. That's more or less the goal of that genre, so it fits well.
Extraction shooter is named that way because you as a player have to extract to survive. There is already a genre of games called looter shooters, but the emphasis there is on frequent loot drops from enemies and rewards, not looting the map. Looting survival is somewhat redundant as looting and scavenging is generally considered an integral part of survival games.
It's interesting to see the perspective of someone that's not into shooters though. Extraction shooters themselves are already a small niche within shooters, so that makes them even more esoteric.
What are your thoughts on a game like HOLE? Never played it but saw someone recommend it in a 'what games have you been playing' thread and added it to my list of games to check out one day. It appears to be an extraction shooter, but I'm not super familiar with the genre. However it's single-player only, which seems to be unique compared to the games you've mentioned which have some element of PvP in them. And obviously it's a small indie game compared to those other ones. Just figured I'd bring it up in case you or anyone else hast any thoughts about it or about single-player extraction shooters in general (if they exist) since I'm not huge on PvP these days.
I've never heard of this game before, but going of of the developer's helpful description of everything in the game (to be fair it's very simple so there's not much), I wouldn't consider this an extraction shooter at all. There's no loot or risk of losing anything, you just go in, shoot enemies, and find the exit. It's so barebones I'm not really sure what to call it other than just a singleplayer FPS.
If you wanted a singleplayer experience that's closer to an extraction shooter in terms of not just gameplay but also stakes, I think either roguelike shooters or survival shooters would come closer as those usually have the higher stakes of losing gear or progress on defeat.
Thanks for the analysis. Roguelike shooters are a good shout, plenty of good ones out there. I'm not really familiar with survival shooters, but I'll check em out!
Reading your description (and briefly having a go at Cycle:Frontier for a bit before it got shut down) I know that Sea of Thieves is not an extraction shooter, but I’m having trouble pinning down where it fails to meet your description. My opinion is mostly down to knowing the vibes of extraction shooters and that Sea of Thieves doesn’t match it.
Thoughts on what Sea of Thieves is missing (or has) which excludes it from being an “extraction shooter”?
Sea of Thieves would be considered an open world PvEvP adventure game. I haven't played it myself, but from what I've seen of it, it doesn't appear to be a rounds-based game but rather a more persistent open-world lobby with no time limit. Extraction shooters are rounds-based with time limits to apply pressure on the player to act prudently rather than meander about or hide until everyone else is gone. If you're completely defeated in a round or run out of time, you don't get to respawn and try and get your stuff back as the next round will be a completely different one, so the stakes are high. Someone in some comment or post somewhere described it as "gear fear", and that is what I consider to be the core element of an extraction shooter.
Oh, I guess my understanding has been coloured by Cycle:Frontier because they weren’t rounds-based. They had a dangerous storm roll through the map on a regular basis (once per hour maybe? My memory of details is very hazy) but if you managed to hunker down in a building you’d be safe until the storm passed. And to counteract that, as long as the server was up you would have fresh people dropping in, so you’d never actually be the last player to safely scavenge.
I guess they had four hour (I think?) server reboots too which capped how long a single player could stay in the map, but I’ve never had a Sea of Thieves session go that long (I know they technically can) so I never considered it a deliberate time limit.
Having wrote all this out, I also realised death in Sea of Thieves is very different — personal death doesn’t take away your weapons and supplies (if you die with a pocketful of cannonballs I believe you still respawn with them in your pockets) and your ship sinking is inconvenient but technically you could sail back and re-collect all your supplies if they’re still there.
Haven't played Cycle: Frontier either but I've read the thoughts of a number of former players on it recently (lots of comparison going on in the Marathon and ARC Raiders subreddits, unsurprisingly), and the lack of a time limit was one thing they mentioned that hurt the game's pacing, but it was otherwise a solid extraction shooter. The rounds-based thing with a time limit might not be a hard rule, but if players can afford to avoid each other and just play it like it's PvE many of them will, which considerably lowers the tension in what's meant to be a high-stakes genre.
You should be able to click and drag the bottom right of the box to resize the editing window
Oh I didn't notice that, I suppose that's on me for not noticing it since I'm more used to clicking on the "Big Editor" button in Reddit post submission. Thanks!
@Flashfall I took a screenshot and highlighted the handle you can use. You can do it on comment boxes too.
Sadly, does not seem to work on the mobile site. There's a little mark in the corner, but my attempts to drag it just select the text box and do nothing.
Yes, to be clear, this is a browser implementation.
<textarea>is naturally resizable in FF and Chrome on desktop, but there are other browsers, especially mobile, where it might not be.Figured as much. Oh well, I have a "Tildes repository" in Writer for a reason!