ARC Raiders review – Embark just locked in my game of the year

I’m saying it from the start: Embark Studios is two for two. If you aren’t already familiar with The Finals – the best FPS game around – then change that. But before you step into the arena, ARC Raiders doubles down on the developer’s talents tenfold. It’s hard for any shooter to make a dent in such a saturated genre, but as I put digital pen to digital paper for my ARC Raiders review, I’m already itching to break away and get back to the Rust Belt.

You’re likely seeing TikTok clips of intense firefights and player interactions, but what is ARC Raiders? Embark Studios’ second game enters the extraction shooter space, a genre of games that tasks players with looting resources, engaging in PvP action, and hopefully getting out alive to tell the tale. It’s a genre that owes a debt to games such as Escape From Tarkov, but Embark’s approach breaks away from the grey hues and AK-47-toting enemies its detractors revel in. Supplied with a hefty dose of retro-futurism and dashing sci-fi charm, ARC Raiders follows the aftermath of society’s destruction in 2180.

Forced to live underground in the last known, livable city of Speranza, sentient cyborgs known as ARCs overwhelm the surface. Life is tough. Resources are limited. Everyone is risking their lives for a glimmer of survival. But in all of that turmoil, a sliver of hope remains, as it’s up to you to go Topside and liberate the lands from all manner of robotic terrors. It evokes The Matrix’s depiction of Zion and the original Star Wars trilogy’s junkyard aesthetic. Whether you’re roaming the hidden laboratories of Blue Gate or the decrepit apartments of Buried City, it harnesses the same level of impeccable world design found in The Finals.

It’s apparent from the moment the game loads up, as the camera free-falls into Speranza. Tinged with an anamorphic lens feel and 35mm-style film grain, everything from your crusty boots to the rusted parts holding your weapon together feels ripped from 1970s cinema. Be it George Miller’s Mad Max or Jack Smight’s Damnation Alley, Embark’s melting pot of vibes gives way to a world that feels incredibly tangible. But existence is fleeting in the Rust Belt, as any moment can be your last. The tutorial makes that clear, as rival raiders knock you out and leave you to become part of the scrapheap.

Before you go Topside, ARC Raiders introduces Speranza as your central player hub. This is where you do deals, trade the coins, and grease the wheels. Five traders are currently in-game, each of them representing important aspects of your survival. Get your medical supplies from Lance, a charming android dripping with aura. Speak to Apollo for all things explosives. They all offer quests to complete in the field, typically ranging from destroying various ARCs, fixing in-map locations, or looting specific parts. The more you complete, the more lore Embark reveals to you about the fight to take back the surface.

If you’d rather save your coins for bigger and better items down the line, your Workshop is where you’ll be harnessing most of your found resources. You can install and upgrade seven stations, which you can use to craft ammo, med kits, guns, and explosives. With a few upgrades to these stations, you can whip up better items, such as Raider Hatch Keys – used to escape maps through secure spots – in seconds. Upgrading your stations isn’t a walk in the park, as many of them require parts from defeating ARCs and venturing into high-tier POIs. It plays into ARC Raiders’ excellent game of cat and mouse with player psychology, deciding whether it’s worth the risk of your precious loot to find them.

Everyone starts on the same playing field. Weak weapons and shields, and no decent attributes unlocked. Split between Mobility, Survival, and Conditioning, the Skill Tree leaves it up to you to shape your Raiders’ play style. I’m pooling my points into Mobility, choosing to increase my stamina and agility, in the hope it’ll save my ass while it’s being shot at. Like loot, Skill Points aren’t given out in abundance. Every level you hit, one point unlocks itself for your disposal. Choose wisely.

While I wish that Speranza existed as a fully explorable hub, akin to The Tower from Destiny 2, the menu UI in ARC Raiders is a godsend. In a moment where Netflix-style UI dominates the world’s most prominent shooters, Embark keeps everything simple and functional. There are no blocky tiles or endless waves of options to weave through. Your Workshop, Raider customization, and more tuck neatly into their own spaces, some of them rendered in-game to tease parts of Speranza that are just out of reach.

You can’t stay down there forever, though. At the start, only Dam Battlegrounds is available to explore. To unlock the other four maps, you need to play a specific number of rounds to unlock more areas. Given the ever-changing pace of ARC Raiders, this flies by quicker than you think. Not just because you can choose to extract at any point, but because ARC Raiders is the most fun I’ve had in a third-person multiplayer shooter in years. Embark gets it. Like The Finals, the experience here plays with familiar concepts of its respective genre, but wholly makes them Embark’s. Although every locale shares an underpinning thread linked to the game’s reverence for retro sci-fi, they all weave together different senses of fear.

These are big maps to explore, but they’re not pointless. With Embark scooping up former EA DICE talent into its ranks, it doesn’t miss the expertise in crafting large-scale battlefields. Buried City invites me into its town center with hazy rays of sunlight, only to extinguish them in the halls of abandoned hospitals and fallen homes. Spaceport suggests a point in time where civilization thrived, looking to the stars in wonder. Now the only thing dropping from the sky is a bullet with your name on it. These places are the backdrop for an immensely satisfying gameplay loop, bursting with moments of glory, defeat, and a few sparks of wholesomeness.

ARC Raiders manages to make a typically daunting genre approachable to casuals and veterans alike. Losing isn’t a crushing defeat, even if you had extremely sought-after items in your backpack. Embark turns every interaction into a cinematic moment. Think of it like your favorite movie scenes, revisiting them on YouTube just to feel something. Every match in ARC Raiders packs in at least one. You can choose to use Party Chat on your console, whether that’s a handheld PC, PS5, or Xbox, but I implore you to give Promixity Chat a chance.

It’s not anything exclusive to ARC Raiders; this feature exists in plenty of games, but Embark uses it to craft an entire experience that you could go hours without knowing it exists. As I pass through areas that are clearly looted already, my friends and I call out into the darkness, repeatedly saying one phrase: “Don’t shoot, we come in peace.” If you’re lucky, you might just make a friend out there in the sand. Some players hail from other sides of the world, others seemingly share the same Yorkshire air as me. Both of us proclaiming our allegiance in the only way we know how, and that’s shouting “Yorkshire! Yorkshire!” to each other across a multi-story parking lot.

Not everyone is out there to get you. I’ve even banded together with strangers to defeat more challenging ARCs known as Rocketeers – a hulking foe that hovers above, firing waves of ballistic mayhem. Once we finish the job, we part ways, bidding each other good day before disappearing into the sunset. If you don’t fancy the idea of Proximity Chat, another feature that can ease you into it is the built-in voice changers. It’s both bizarre and brilliant how these work. Some come across as mere filters with a degraded flair to them, while others completely change it up.

It’s a great way to factor in players who love roleplaying, or those who can be a little shy talking to others. I welcome you to chat if I see you out there. Of course, not every player is willing to play ball. You’ll find yourself negotiating peace, in hopes you don’t need to draw your weapon. It’s enough to awaken the demon inside anyone, and I find myself betraying players from time to time, like the outlaw I believe I am. It feeds into the secret sauce of ARC Raiders, and that’s the game’s alignment as a stealth game at its core.

The astounding sound design enriches this massively. Aside from Battlefield 6, it’s probably among the strongest audio experiences you’ll dive into this year. A shout-out to the score by Battlefield composers Patrik Andrén and Johan Söderqvist needs to be mentioned, too. Pulsating synths play off each other, often bathing me in soundscapes that fans of Vangelis’ Blade Runner or Daft Punk’s Tron: Legacy score will enjoy. Beyond that, metallic environments spring reverb off the faintest touch of your voice or the heaviest swing of your pickaxe while looting. Gunshots punch a hole in my chest with each shot, reminding me I’m carrying a makeshift death dealer held together by tape and bolts. It’s absolutely engrossing and is all the more intense during solo matches.

Because ARC Raiders runs like a dream on my ROG Ally Z1e, I’m loving diving into matches on my own, settling in with headphones to shut off the outside world. My ARC Raiders preview showcases the game performing well in the Tech Test, but Embark’s refinements since then make it even easier to get your ARC Raiders Steam Deck configuration good to go. There are a few minor frame drops, depending on the area I’m in, but I’m mostly playing on Medium settings at 1080p, with a friendly dash of frame generation to aid it. Without it, you can expect to hover around a playable 30fps mark, but it’s excellent that both the Steam Deck and several Windows handhelds can soar above 60fps.

Thanks to ARC Raiders crossplay, I’m playing with my friends when I’m away from my PlayStation 5 – and my progression follows me. It means I can squeeze in quick raids with a ‘free loadout’, a bundle of items that you can take into any match if you don’t feel like risking your valuables. It’s another way to make such a crushing genre approachable. Regardless of what weapons you use, though, combat is a rush. Guns clatter back, jolting in rebellion due to their haphazard nature. Punching through an enemy shield relays a whirling sound of failing electronics.

Firefights are punchy enough to send home the thrills, but don’t feel unfair. Every shot matters alongside your positioning and squad tactics. If I get downed and knocked out, it’s my fault because I’m simply outplayed. It makes me want to get back in for another round, a chance to hone my survival prowess. When you’re not fending for your life, ARC Raiders gives you something else to strive for in the form of clout. From level 15 onwards, players can compete in a global leaderboard in the Trials menu.

Completely Trials unlocks more cosmetics, items, and pushes you further to the top. When I first joined, I was the 48th-highest player in the world at the time! Booting up the game several hours later, I find myself kicked down below into the 80s. At level 20, Expeditions act as an endgame, acting as a Call of Duty-style Prestige option for truly dedicated players. It takes some grafting to even sign up for, but it offers another layer of play for real grinders.

Looking past launch, Embark is already gearing up to keep the momentum going. With over 300,000 players on Steam alone over launch weekend, and 1.5 million copies sold, the developer is striking while the iron is hot. Two months of content are already nailed on to arrive, with an entirely new map coming in November. Time will tell whether it can keep up this content cadence, but it already looks like a stronger storm of the gate than The Finals.

There’s nothing else like ARC Raiders out there. It might share a genre with other games, but Embark Studios is doing a seemingly impossible thing here by making it clear there’s room for experimentation. I have over 40 hours in this game, between the Tech Test, Server Slam, and launch. I can’t get enough of this game. ARC Raiders is a masterclass of fun, so I’m locking it in now. ARC Raiders is the game of the year.

Are you playing ARC Raiders? Find a teammate or let us know what you think over on the Pocket Tactics Discord server.