My earliest experience of an extraction shooter was Escape from Tarkov, the maverick title didn’t opt the usual way of publishing via Steam or make something that was for ‘everyone’. It trusted in its vision and created something that at the time was an extremely specific and small niche.
I first played the game in 2018, and since then, Tarkov and extraction shooters themselves have ballooned into a genre in themselves with titles from every big studio incorporating a mode that did it in some way, shape or form.
Call of Duty had DMZ, and Delta Force also has an extraction mode. Battlefield 2042 had the ill-fated, but enjoyable Hazard Zone. But they usually were modes in other games, extraction-only titles remained a lesser occurrence than its bold and brash cousin – The Battle Royale.
However, in 2025, the complexion is very different. Extraction shooter is no longer a ‘mode’, it has become its own genre with some standout titles that headline the upcoming games tab. Be it Marathon, Exoborne or ARC Raiders, the genre is, as the kids say, EATING GOOD in 2025.
There is a new trend that comes with it as well, most Battle Royales and live service experiences nowadays opt for something like a Free-to-play model with customisations and other perks offered via a shop or battlepass.
Marathon and ARC Raiders both are notably opting for a premium experience. That means you have to buy the game to play it, at this point it’s unclear what the pricing would be (or if there is any) for battle passes and cosmetic stores for either but I would venture to say that it would be quite shocking to be a live-service game in 2025 and not have some form of monetization.
MMO usually offer subscriptions that give some very nice ‘perks’ or ‘Pay To Win’ abilities (depending on who you ask), so it’s not crazy to think that we’ll see something along those lines for either title.
My concern is that these two are new IPs. I know Marathon’s IP in itself isn’t new, but when it comes to modern-day gaming, it’s still venturing into unknown territory for the majority of people. And live service games in general tend to ‘Live’ or die based on player count.
I worried about this with Hazard Zone, an extremely enjoyable mode in BF2042, but sadly was only accessible to those who owned the game. I had argued even during the early days after release that if the mode was to survive what looked like long queue times even at launch, it had to go Free-To-Play.
Multiplayer games need players, and when you have a price of entry for a game that is a multiplayer-only experience, it can lead to some challenges. The most recent example that comes to mind is of Concorde, which had other challenges to face, but it never really got a chance to address the issues and convince a player base because it just never got going.
It never convinced people to pay.
ARC Raiders looks amazing and I will probably end up buying it, but with most extraction shooters or multiplayer games, I doubt I’ll convince my friends to join me on the ride – I have a hard enough time convincing them to join me on Free-to-play games, but that’s probably more a ‘me issue’ than anything!
Maybe all this worry is for nothing, and we’ll see Marathon and ARC Raiders (both made by extremely talented teams) go on to be extremely successful, at least I hope that’s the case, even if a large part of me isn’t convinced of that.
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