ARC Raiders : Pre-Launch Preview Event

I’ve now played ARC Raiders during four different events this year. Each time, I come away more impressed and craving more time with the game. As someone who spends an inordinate amount of time on multiplayer games every week, I often talk about games having that “just one more” feeling. And ARC Raiders has it in spades.

Last week, the team at Seasoned Gaming was invited to a pre-launch preview event with the team at Embark Studios. We were treated to more design details on ARC Raiders along with a play session that featured the fourth map (Blue Gate) for the first time along with a wide range of the available gear. As Embark isn’t doing a “review” period prior to the game’s official launch due to wanting all players to start on an even playing field (which I applaud), this was the final look at the game prior to go-live. So what does the PvE/PvP extraction shooter have in store, and can it keep players engaged over the long haul in an increasingly competitive multiplayer space?

The A.I. Revolution

If you’re entirely new to ARC Raiders and wondering what the buzz is all about, let’s set the stage. The setting is future Earth, which has been decimated by a mechanized threat known simply as “ARC.” What remains of humanity has moved underground, and bold explorers, known as “Raiders,” scavenge the surface for valuable resources.

Unlike most post-apocalyptic settings, the environments in ARC Raiders can be quite beautiful, owing to the fact that it was the ARC who drove humanity underground and not an environmental disaster. In this vein ARC Raiders aims to be more immersive while providing a challenging, moment-to-moment adventure that is elevated by human players, which can be friendly or hostile, and surprisingly intelligent and aggressive ARC enemies.

One Step for Mankind

After a very brief introductory section, you’ll reach the elevator to take you down to Speranza, your home when not topside. Speranza is where you’ll spend a lot of time sorting through your gear, completing quests with traders, crafting gear, and working through your character progression. And it’s progression where ARC Raiders begins to separate itself from similarly-styled games in the space.

Embark is focused on players creating their own identity in ARC Raiders. So, in addition to character creation and on-going passes, cosmetics, and items to unlock, there is also an extensive skill-tree to build into. The tree is split into three branches, focused on Conditioning, Mobility, and Survival, and it features a wide-range of beneficial improvements, from crouch-walking faster to discovering loot more quickly, being quieter in key situations, having much more stamina and load capacity, and more.

With extraction shooters, the topic of global wipes or resets is usually a contentious one, and Embark has made sure to address that head on. So further along the lines of player progression, they are introducing Expeditions, with the goal of Expeditions being: give players something to work towards over a longer time-period while still respecting players who may not have as much time to play. Expeditions will run over 8 week periods, and, should you accomplish all of the tasks in an Expedition, you can complete the project and earn permanent incentives, such as account unlocks, unique cosmetics, account buffs for the next period, etc.  Don’t worry if you don’t complete in time as your progress will carry to the next period. This is a unique and seemingly good balance for the playerbase, which you can learn more about here.

Quests, Expeditions, and skill-tree upgrades are all ways in which ARC Raiders rewards your time investment, despite being an extraction shooter. While you will still lose the gear you don’t extract with (except for your safe pockets), even when you do, your runs don’t feel like a complete waste of time. And that’s a very important distinction within the genre.

Spending time in Speranza optimizing gear, upgrading workbenches, and completing projects is all part of the fun. But it’s not why you’re here. I presume you’re here for the moment-to-moment action that a game world like this can provide. And does ARC Raiders ever do that effectively…

A Whirlwind of Looting, A Firestorm of Fear

Heading out topside, you’ll spawn at a random location and want to immediately understand where you are in the world. There are four maps at launch, each of which are large, sprawling, and often beautiful with many different areas to discover. In our preview event, we were able to sample Blue Gate for the first time, which instantly became my favorite location due to its vast size and varied exploration. It’s also worth noting that each location features time-of-day and weather effects, along with “special conditions” that Embark will treat like events at certain times of the day.

Similar to Battle Royales, there are locations on each map that prioritize rarer loot, but, naturally, it’s where you’ll likely find more players vying for that same loot along with the more capable and aggressive ARC. Choosing how and when (or even IF) to engage is everything in ARC Raiders, and if you’re joining for the first time at launch, heed this warning: don’t underestimate the ARC. They are some of the most well-developed A.I. enemies I’ve ever encountered in a game, and they can very quickly end your run before it ever truly began.

The ARC come in all shapes and sizes, with each posing unique threats. There are small spider-bots called Ticks, rolling balls with flamethrowers named Fireballs, and camera-like flying bots called Snitches. There are Rocketeers who can end your life in a single shot, frightening Leapers who can spot and pounce on you from a great distance, and Bombardiers who will rain mortars down on you from the sky. Feeling the tension grip you as you attempt to sneak by ARC only for it to escalate to absolute dread and sheer panic when a Rocketeer’s alarm goes off and it locks onto you simply cannot be explained. It can only be felt. What I can say is that ARC Raiders has provided some of the most memorable and downright hilarious gaming moments in recent memory.

Of course, there’s still the PvP aspect to contend with as well. You can team up with squads of three, and the threat of running into another team, or even just a solo player trying to loot in secret, is always present. PvP battles are thrilling in ARC Raiders for a wide array of reasons. Embark’s shooter pedigree with The Finals certainly shows through, and, combined with a diverse range of guns and equipment, the thrill of player-versus-player combat is always a highlight. When you combine that with location variety, verticality, and the ever-present ARC getting into the mix, no two situations are ever the same.

As an example of the chaos that can ensue, our team of three (shout out to Mike over at Windows Central) came across two teams that had clearly partnered up in-game. The threat of 6 on 3 staring us in the face, we channeled our inner-Jenkins and fired the first shot. But rather than stupidly face them head on, we pushed to the right. As they attempted to flank around us to the left, they ran into a few ARC we knew were there. Before they knew it, a few ARC became a lot of ARC, and even two teams working together with high-end loot were dispatched, one by one, methodically, by the ARC while we sat in the distance taking pot shots and enjoying some popcorn.

It’s those types of moments that make ARC Raiders truly special. And in my 40+ years of gaming, there are very few games that have created the type of sandbox that can create those sorts of experiences organically.

See You Topside

There’s a lot more to say about ARC Raiders, and we’ll continue to provide coverage on it in the coming weeks after launch. With a global launch time and still much to discover, I’m excited to join the community in exploring all that ARC Raiders has to offer.

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Launch is scheduled for October 30th, and it will be accompanied by “Raider Decks” that function similarly to battle passes but are simply incorporated into the game, along with additional cosmetics that can be purchased separately. Embark has also commented on matchmaking, which will prioritize team size to attempt to match squads against one another rather than people playing solo. Given what we’ve seen out of the excellent support for The Finals, I have little doubt that Embark will do the same for ARC Raiders. I’ll see you topside.