I have to say that the title may make it sound like I am having a go at Arc Raiders, which recently completed its server slam playtest before the release end of the month. But nothing could be further from the truth.
The title, while extremely true in my opinion, is also the best thing about Arc Raiders.
My first impression of Arc Raiders was that they had nailed the atmosphere and the sound design, playing it a bit more it felt extremely polished and even though it had more than 100,000 players logging in during the server slam, I personally didn’t run into any issues – Be it latency, connectivity or even frame drops.
The game ran well, the tutorial was easy to find yourself through and without much effort, you were right in the thick of it, doing raids with randos or your friends (or going at it solo).
And that’s when it hit me, I felt the same thing about Hunt: Showdown, Crytek’s best game (yes, I put it above Crysis), with it’s iconic sound and environment design that will have you hold your breath as you travel through murky swamps and desolate properties in search of demons to ‘capture’.
Arc Raiders felt a lot like this, but not as intense. It didn’t feel daunting like Hunt did (and still does if you’re on your own), it doesn’t come with the massive learning curve that will make you doubt whether you should bother playing it at all. It’s easy to jump into, raids are quick and fast and while the sound design does give your location away easily in an altercation, moving around without alerting other players is something that’s a lot easier to do here than in Hunt.
Arc Raiders is the perfect game for ‘filthy casuals’ like myself, it doesn’t take itself too seriously, gear loss doesn’t feel as bad as it did in Tarkov, Hunt and other extraction shooters and the volume of your inner voice screaming “I’m gonna die. I’M GONNA DIE!” is a lot lower than the other hardcore extraction shooters.
This also means that this is the perfect game to introduce your friends to the genre, I’ve seen countless people on Bluesky and Reddit remark how they aren’t a fan of the genre but enjoyed the game, and if you ever want to give a quick description of the game, I think the title of this article works perfectly. It’s Hunt Lite, but with Robots instead of demons. Sci-Fi instead of Supernatural.
However, I just cant justify paying a $40 price for a game that I know I’ll play like mad for a week and then probably never go back to again, that’s not a comment on the game. That’s on me! Add to the fact I’m traveling at the moment makes the choice even easier! I’ll probably wait for a sale and see how the game handles itself post launch, as that will be the ultimate test for the game.
Arc Raiders launches on 30th October on Steam and consoles.
Comments