Arc Raiders is hilarious
I think the simplest thing Arc Raiders nailed about gameplay is the pacing. The enemies move at such a pace that you never get instantly vapourised; you always have a second or two to try something crazy even when you're utterly doomed. The times that 'something crazy' works you have a unique memorable moment. Let me tell you about one of mine.
A Rocketeer is a common headache in Arc Raiders. It's a quadcopter drone the size of a tank that shoots rockets. It usually takes a big and expensive weapon to take one down, but players started to take notice of an item called a 'Hornet Driver', basically a stun grenade. What happens when you stun an aerial drone? That's right, it drops right out of the sky, to its doom if the fall is far enough.
With this in mind, I emerged from some tunnels to find another player pinned down by a Rocketeer. I throw a Hornet Driver, it hits just the right spot and the Rocketeer drops to the ground but is unharmed... and then in trying to angrily get back in the air it flips itself over on its back, completely immobilised. The two of us strangers hesitate for a split second before we sprint over and beat the thing to death with hammers.
There are flaws in this game but in terms of creating organic events it's been a great time.
This is where I think extraction shooters like Arc Raiders and my personal favourite Marathon (2026) shine. They're not accessible, not particualrly, and if you're not into online shooters you probably won't connect properly enough to the point of loving them, but they're a great fun time because they offer a sandbox to tell your own stories in.
Marathon has a much lower TTK than Arc Raiders and is generally faster paced. It also looks gorgeous, everyone should give it a try, but that's not the point. The point is that I have dozens of these kinds of stories.
Once, for example, I was in Cryo Archive, the game's endgame raid map, which is not only full of the hardest PvE enemies, but also five to six other bloodthirsty teams armed to the teeth with grenades and shotguns. My team was down, eliminated in fact (this means you can revive them, slowly, but they've already dropped their loot) and I have to find my way back to them since I'm playing Triage, the support class. And on the way back to them, I stumble across a three person team. Golden shields, purple Misriah 2442 automatic shotguns, near-instant full healing Panacea Kits, and shield projectors. Essentially impossible. But they're looting, they're not paying attention. So I throw a grenade into the room, they rush out, but I'm in the vents - and once they realise this, I've already dropped a shield barrier in there, and keep peeking across the border to get pot shots in. One down, two down, the last one hits me with a blast to the face, shield's broken, near death - until a lone PvE robot from behind distracts the guy, and I get a melee kill in. I go revive my friends and we harvest the resulting loot buffet.
Games like these are unforgiving and generally quite harsh, especially when they're as PvP focused as Marathon is, but at some point, even if it only happens once, you'll get into a situation so sticky you're doomed, and you'll lock the fuck in, and you'll win. Won't happen often, but it will. Eventually, you'll walk into a 1v3, and they're trapped in there with you, not the other way around.
I think sharing these kinds of stories is what makes online games special, and I have more, if you'll share some more as well, dear reader.
I haven't played myself, but I was glued to Arc Raiders on twitch when it released and one other thing I really enjoyed as a viewer was how the players have agency of their PvP-PvE spectrum much thanks to all the Arcs and how you can't trade in the base so you might as well help each other on the ground (obv in group play it's much more slanted towards PvP).
Thanks for sharing your moment! <3
I think the aggression based match making kind of ruined this. I get why they did it. People that like fighting other players end up with other blood thirsty types. While other players get to play with other cooperative people.
But it took a lot of the guess work out of the game. The thing that really attracted me to the game was this idea that anyone might turn on you and you'd always be weighing the risk of fighting another player vs nearby ARC while being worried they might just shoot you in the back.
You had those moments where you'd have the drop on someone and have to decide if you were going to take advantage of them. Or those times you were completely screwed but then were saved by a kind stranger.
Once everyone realized there was a cosmic nanny watching everything you did, it took a lot of the magic out of it. Suddenly that guy wasnt helping me spontaneously. Hes just didn't think taking my stuff was worth ending up in a gutter lobby for the next few games. When I avoid shooting a guy in the back for his loot, its not because of my innate humanity, but because its actually a better investment to not get black marks on my record.
They should have never admitted to it. People were already guessing but admitting it released the magic vapour and the game lost all tension.
I would've never done a goody/baddy lobby in the first place, the game was immensely popular at launch regardless, but the admission is what made it feel artificial.