ARC strategy review in progress

I thought I would only play ARC Raiders for 5 or 6 hours on launch day before sitting down to write this initial review, but after playing a few games, I suddenly couldn't help myself – and before I knew it, I was already playing 10 hours. It's without a doubt the extraction shooter I'm most obsessed with (and I've played a lot of them), with clean and tense gunplay, a progression system that's been incredibly satisfying to date, and a loot game that left me fretting about what to put in my backpack and what to leave behind. I still have a lot to do and see before I draw any final conclusions, but what I did have It makes a very good first impression on those who have played it.

ARC Raiders follows the usual retreat shooter formula of throwing you into an area, killing NPC enemies and fighting for loot, all while looking over your shoulder for opponents who just want to crack you open like a meaty piñata and take everything you've collected. From what I've seen so far, ARC Raiders doesn't iterate on these fundamentals very much, but it does address them, and that's harder than it sounds – like, say, a big-budget endeavor like this Battlefield 2042's Danger Zone is mostly flat, Bungie's Marathon's alpha drops so hard it has been postponed indefinitely.

One of the main ways it succeeds is through tense gunplay, where weapons only hold a few rounds in each magazine and require a lot of time to reload, while robotic NPCs are either much faster than you or can drop missiles that take you out with a single explosion. This meant I often felt like a rodent, sneaking around the world to scavenge for food and supplies before sneaking back to base – but when combat did break out, I was filled with a delicious sense of anxiety, knowing you'd either lose everything you fought for or grab some awesome gear from the corpses of those you'd defeated, making it a high-risk, high-reward situation. This includes both AI-controlled players and human players, as both can be found in the world and fought, although it's best to avoid either one unless you know you've brought the necessary equipment and skills to fight. This is because firing a shot has a high chance of attracting all robot enemies and loot-hungry players to your location, exploiting your weakness to do as much damage as possible.

All four maps I've seen so far have a very cool and unique atmosphere, from the ruins of a flooded dam to a city buried in red sand. They're also pretty cool to look at, which is a good thing because you'll be spending a lot of time trudging back and forth between them in search of loot. Even though I've played dozens of games in these areas, I still feel like I haven't seen most of the nooks and crannies of these areas, but they're starting to feel vaguely familiar to me. Hopefully they'll still have secrets to reveal, thus increasing the amount of time I'm willing to spend on each one.

As I work my way through the final area, one thing I'm still looking for are enemy combatants that I haven't faced yet (except for the large tanks, which I just avoided in the early stages). Most of my NPC combat encounters have been against small roly-poly robots and flying drones that are fairly easy to destroy, and my fellow players have been the only suitable challenge so far. I'm looking forward to being strong enough to take on some of the tougher enemies more seriously, but it would be nice to have a greater variety of low-level AI combatants to shake up the early game a bit.

Thankfully, even though the maps and enemies are starting to feel familiar, that doesn't dampen my desire to play the game because of how good the loot and progression systems are. Every run, win or lose, I happily return to the cozy haven of Speranza, where I can chat with vendors, turn in and accept new quests, upgrade my facility to allow me to craft items and gain new upgrades, customize my character's appearance, and spend skill points to make me slightly better at things like staying quiet while scavenging for loot during a match. There's so much to do and unlock that I really feel like I've only scratched the surface in this regard, which leaves me glued to my controller and eager to jump into a new game.

Regardless, there's still a lot to do and a lot of robots to kill, so as soon as I'm done typing I'll be heading back into the wilderness to find more. You can expect to receive full rated reviews early next week!