Arc Raiders (2025): The Review

Overview

Arc Raiders feels like a weird but welcome lovechild of cinema flair and extraction shooter grit: loud, slick, and polished, with just enough fresh ideas to stop the genre from snoring at itself. And if the rapid-fire, left-field mechanics don’t win you over, the audio and visual punch and, shockingly, the narrative probably will. Console players might feel a bit less spoiled, sure, but this is still one extraction you’ll think twice about walking away from.

Score: 8 out of 10

The Positives ✅

Arc Raiders has no business being this thoughtful. Extraction shooters usually live and die on vibes like “shoot first, loot later, repeat until burnout,” but Embark actually bothered to build a world here. A real one. There’s lore, context, and a sense that extracting isn’t just about greed, it’s about survival. I didn’t expect that from this genre, and frankly, neither did the genre.

The setting does a lot of heavy lifting, and it pulls its weight. Humanity forced underground, machines ruling the surface, and a fragile society scraping by in Speranza? That’s already more narrative ambition than most shooters even pretend to have. Raiders aren’t just murder tourists; they’re scavengers keeping civilization alive. It’s high-concept stuff, and shockingly, it works.

Gameplay-wise, Arc Raiders is smart about what it steals and where it experiments. The high-risk loadout system is familiar, but it’s bolstered by strong PvE encounters, tense PvP, and mechanics that encourage smart play instead of constant gunfire. One stray shot can turn the whole map against you, and that constant pressure keeps every run interesting.

Then there’s the weird stuff, and I mean that in a good way. A skill tree in an extraction shooter? Sure. A customizable room with crafting stations and passive income? Why not. Loadout kits that push specific playstyles? Go on then. None of these ideas reinvent gaming, but for this genre, they feel borderline rebellious.

And yes, it needs to be said: Arc Raiders is gorgeous. Easily the best-looking extraction shooter I’ve ever played. The art direction leans more Metro: 2033 than Modern Military Shooter #47, and the biomes actually vary, deserts, forests, massive structures you can traverse. It looks incredible and runs well, which honestly feels illegal in 2025.

The Negatives ⚠️

For all its ambition, Arc Raiders still can’t fully escape the genre’s baggage. No matter how good the world-building is, you’re still doing runs, extracting loot, and repeating the cycle. The variety helps, but repetition does eventually creep in, especially if you’re grinding levels or chasing specific upgrades.

Some systems feel intentionally restrained, maybe a bit too much so. The skill tree, while welcome, plays it safe. You won’t be breaking the game or creating wildly unbalanced builds, which is good for fairness but less exciting for experimentation junkies. It does its job, just without fireworks.

Live service scars are also present, even if they’re relatively light. The Battle Pass, sorry, Raider Deck, exists. Thankfully, it’s cosmetic-only and not actively insulting, but its presence is still a reminder that no online game escapes unscathed. At least it’s optional and not waving credit cards in your face every five minutes.

Console players also get the short end of the stick, through no fault of the game itself. Online multiplayer fees on PlayStation and Xbox are still a thing, and Arc Raiders doesn’t magically bypass that nonsense. Add crossplay into the mix and suddenly controller players might feel like they brought a butter knife to a gunfight, though, to be fair, you can turn it off.

None of these issues break the game, but they do chip away at the shine. Arc Raiders reaches higher than most extraction shooters, but it still trips over a few genre-shaped potholes along the way.

The Experience 🎮

I went into Arc Raiders expecting another extraction shooter to try, tolerate, and quietly uninstall a week later. That… didn’t happen. Instead, I found myself actually wanting to stay in its world, which is not something I’ve ever said about this genre before. The atmosphere pulled me in hard.

Every run felt tense in the right way. Not because everything was unfair, but because everything mattered. Gunshots felt risky, movement felt deliberate, and extraction always came with that last-second panic that makes these games work when they’re done right. I died plenty, sometimes stupidly, but I never felt cheated.

What surprised me most was how much I enjoyed the downtime. Upgrading my room, crafting gear, planning my next loadout, it all made losses sting less and victories feel earned. Even after a brutal streak of failed extractions, the free loadout kit gave me a way back in without feeling punished into quitting. Which, yes, I absolutely needed.

Visually, I never got tired of looking at the game. Whether I was crossing open terrain or creeping through ruined structures, Arc Raiders constantly reminded me that effort was put into how this world looks and feels. The sound design helped too, crunchy weapons, solid voice work, and music that knew when to shut up and let tension breathe.

By the end of it, I realized something mildly horrifying: I was recommending an extraction shooter. ARC Raiders didn’t just meet my expectations, it bulldozed them. At $39.99, it delivers AAA vibes without the AAA price tag, and that alone makes it worth attention. I didn’t expect to like it. I definitely didn’t expect to care. And yet, here we are.