Way Back When(tm) I had put ARC Raiders on my wish list because it looked a lot like Destiny, or maybe Anthem (RIP), or even The Division, all games I liked, loved, or tolerated, in that order, and wished I could have something alike, but more modern. When it was announced that the game would be a PvPvEX-style game, I punted it; PvP shooters aren’t anything I give time to. Extraction shooters, the currently popular sidecar to PvP shooters, just makes things exponentially worse in my opinion.

But there was something about this game that intrigued me. I read initial stories generated by gameplay and people were saying that while PvP was happening, it usually happened in group matchmaking, and even then it wasn’t even a guarantee. People seemed to be fighting the community narrative that this had to be a PvP game. Then I heard recently that Embark Studios was tweaking their matchmaking to put PvPers together, and people who never shot at another player were getting put into their own zones together. I mean, isn’t that what players have been asking for all along? Is it really that “simple” (not easy, certainly, but at least someone is trying, apparently). I spent some time watching @CakedCrusader play but to be honest, it’s a pretty boring game to watch as the main goal is to loot containers, avoid combat, and successfully extract — the very definition of a non-event event. My takeaway became that maybe the game wasn’t as terrible as I had imagined it and that the matchmaking stories were true, so I bought the game during the Steam Winter Sale, 2025 Edition.

ARC Raiders is a humbling game because players are, by far, the weakest, worst combatants on the field. Whereas other dystopian shooters might allow players to fulfill their power fantasies over time through weapon upgrades, even the best weapons in ARCR are literally just pipes with compressed air tanks that shoot shards of metal. Against other players, the weapons are probably effective but against the ARCs? Throw a Q-Tip at a bus and you’ll understand what it’s like the first time getting cocky against one of the AI enemies. It’s not even a case of “don’t bite off more than you can chew”; it’s really “don’t even approach the table” because death is going to happen far more often in ARC Raiders than in most shooters that I have played.

I try to remember that failure is just a learning experience that can help me get better (except in skydiving) but games are games and failure is often punished as a core mechanic. In ARC Raiders, dying in the field means losing everything that we carry (except for a small exception). That means our shields, weapons, augments, and loot; the adage “don’t deploy what you don’t want destroyed” doesn’t apply here because losing everything is a given, and that can be painful. ARC Raiders knows this and wants you to feel it, but it also knows that it’s a freakin’ video game and they need people to not give up in frustration. There are systems built into the game that allow the destitute among us to get free crafting materials and even free, basic load-outs when we can’t create or buy new stuff. And we get XP for the most mundane actions like walking into a new area or opening a cabinet. The game wants you to feel sad, angry, and despondent about being gunned down by murderous hover-bots, but it want’s you to keep coming back for the privilege.

And so I have been, slowly, and not that often. The difference between watching @CakedCrusader play and playing it myself is massive; I was drowning in tension when I was making the decisions. Living or dying was entirely in my own hands. I did died early on because I did get cocky and tried shooting down a small hovercraft, but shooting makes noise, and soon another bot showed up and they blasted my ass back to the original Stone Age without a care in the world. I wasn’t even a threat, and was only eradicated because it’s what they were programmed to do. No hard feelings on their part. For me, though, it hurt. A lot.

But then The Magic happened. A few days later I logged in and was broadcasting on Discord for @CakedCrusader who was giving me pointers on how to proceed. I ransacked some lockers and desks and immediately headed to the extraction point: a fortified bunker that requires me to call an elevator, wait for what seems like an eternity for it to arrive, and then activate the elevator to take me home. Unfortunately, I drew the attention of not one, not two, but three of the smaller hovercraft bots. I couldn’t outrun them. I couldn’t outshoot them. They were pinpoint-accurate every time, and the only recourse I had was to reach the bunker, call the elevator and…oh crap I was downed with extreme prejudice. I was still alive though; once downed, the bots tend to ignore players, so I was able to crawl slowly to the elevator kiosk and initiate the call. As I waited, the bots circled the area, minding their own business but making me nervous. Meanwhile, I was bleeding out waiting for the bunker to open. Finally, the doors opened and I pulled myself in, struggling to the inner console to start my trip home. I had one pixel’s-worth of health left when I got the mission success message and I do not lie when I say that both @CakedCrusader and I cheered loudly.

I decided to go back out after handling My Business at the HQ. On this run, I immediately ran into another player. He waved to me, I waved to him, and we were cool. He bolted and headed for the nearby extraction point, but got ambushed by some flyers. I joined in and we took them down together. Unfortunately, one of the BIG hovercraft came around the corner of the building, heading slowly but directly for our area. We took shelter in a garage, hunkered down, and watched as the murderbot was joined by two other smaller craft. Then another player joined us in the garage. This player wasn’t keen to wait: she threw out some smoke grenades which allowed us all to rush the bunker under temporary cover. Once the smoke cleared, though, we were exposed, with only a meager shadow of the bunker to keep us safe for a brief time as the murderbot was circling around our way again. When one of my circumstantial companions made a move to call the elevator, all hell broke loose. The smaller bots opened fire, and we responded in kind. The larger craft registered the commotion and was now focused on wiping us out, but the bunker opened and we rushed inside. We weren’t entirely safe, but we had a choice: start the elevator, or wait in case there were other players headed to our position. We chose to wait, and were justified as four other players sprinted across the killing field to tumble into the elevator. In the end, seven players were saved.

Seven players were saved. It would have been so easy for things to have gone any other way for any or all of us. We simply got lucky. It wasn’t entirely skill, nor was it entirely firepower. That murderbot could have wrecked us all, but seven of us survived. It was an amazing feeling, the likes of which I can’t remember having felt. I’ve played competitive shooters on occasion and those kinds of victories — even ones snatched from the jaws of defeat — do not compare to winning what we assumed was an unwinnable situation. It wasn’t just that the devs programmed the ARCs to have more armor or more firepower; they somehow designed the game so that little victories like these mean more than simply getting more powerful or watching numbers go up.

I’ve learned that I don’t mind losing in ARC Raiders. I know that when I do, I will lose everything on my person. My strategy in any other game might be to not take the Good Stuff to the surface, or not to loot everything I see, because doing so and losing everything would be madness, but I know that if I don’t take my Good Stuff with me, I am guaranteed to die, and die quickly. I know that stealth, waiting, taking appropriate cover, and shooting only as a last resort is what I need to do; I know that my jaw will clench and my back will hurt an hour later, but feeling the tension is the game. I will probably try to shoot my way out of encounters. I will certainly make ill-advised runs across open fields to get to the elevator, and I will die and lose all of my loot again and again, but I’m really OK with that because we saved seven players and that was an awesome feeling. I’d love to have the chance for a feeling like that again.