ARC Raiders is easily one of the best multiplayer games currently on PS5.
This sophomore release from Swedish developer Embark Studios manages to balance all the hardcore elements of an extraction shooter while making it accessible, cinematic, immersive, and, most of all, just damn good fun.
ARC Raiders is set in a post-apocalyptic world where most of humanity has fled to the stars.
Those who remain are forced underground as the murderous ARC machines endlessly patrol the surface. But a brave few, known as Raiders, venture topside in a quest for loot, loot, and more loot.
Therein lies the primary gameplay loop: you go topside, gather as much loot as you can, and then try your darndest to make it home alive while either avoiding or killing ARC machines and other real players. If you die, you leave behind everything on your person.
It’s the basic extraction premise that you’ve seen before in games like Hunt: Showdown or even Bungie’s upcoming Marathon.
However, ARC Raiders manages to stand out from the crowd with a delicately balanced experience that is fun for those with half an hour to spare and those looking for the long grind.
Regardless of which camp you land in, ARC Raiders delivers a phenomenal visual and audio experience.
Visually, it’s a mix of a Star Wars aesthetic, with subtle accents of nature creeping its way over stone structures; some areas wouldn’t go amiss in The Last of Us.
Brutalist architecture is speckled with vines and moss. Open planes are littered by rusted cars and the corpses of ARC machines that have fallen in previous battles. Guns are rustic, and Raiders wear scavenged garbs that are both stylish and befitting of the world. It’s a real looker of a game.
Each of the four maps has a distinct look and feel. The claustrophobic and sandy streets of Buried City are quite the contrast to the open mountainous region of Blue Gate.
And then it’s all brought to life with a cinematic soundscape that is readable and immersive, yet suitably imperfect.
It’s not the pristine levels of sound design that you’d hear in Call of Duty, but instead is deliberately distorted, echoey, and appropriately hazy. It gives every setting a realistic depth, further embedding you in its world.
What’s better is that the audio isn’t just superficial either. It actually informs the gameplay, whether that’s the distant beeps of an extraction being called, or the wailing of a Snitch letting you know that other Raiders have been spotted.
So many of your gameplay choices can be informed purely through the sound design.
Put bluntly, then, ARC Raiders is a visual and auditory masterclass. But that’s not all it is, as the emergent gameplay allows each match to create its own story, to the point that it often feels like a hand-crafted single-player experience.
One match, you’re silently sneaking through some dank hallways, closing in on unsuspecting looters. In another, you’re desperately trying to escape with a bag full of supplies as you dodge bullets and rockets.
Gameplay also feels fantastic. Controls are tight, guns feel punchy, and traversal is grounded. Embark cooked up one of the best feeling first-person shooters with The Finals, so it’s great to know it can do the same in third-person.
There are unknowable elements introduced with real-world players. We’ve been caught out plenty of times by players simply waiting for us to walk into their trap. And there is the social element too, as you can actually form shaky alliances with random players.
But a surprise for us is how dangerous the enemy AI can be. Runs can go sideways quickly if you aren’t careful.
Hornets can chip away at your shield, Wasps can stun you, Snitches can call in backup, and if a Rocketeer gets you in its sights, you’re as good as dead.
It all serves to keep you on your toes. One moment you can be well stocked with a bag full of loot, and the next dead — that gun you worked so hard to craft is now nothing more than a distant memory. It’s the risk and reward of an extraction shooter, and ARC Raiders balances it near perfectly.
The main difference in experience will be whether you are playing the game with friends or solo. With friends, or even filling your squad with other players, is endless fun as you discuss tactics, goals, and how to deal with any emerging situation.
However, there is no solo or duos mode, so if you boot up by yourself, you’ll be going against full squads of three. While this can feel like a tense game of cat and mouse, you are most firmly the mouse in these scenarios, and it can feel a little unfair at times.
Regardless of whether you’re playing solo or with a squad, why would you keep coming back for more? Well, ARC Raiders has a number of retention mechanics to keep you invested.
There’s the core gameplay loop of hoarding your supplies, upgrading work benches, to craft better gear for each run.
The maps also host a rotation of variations from night raids to massive queen harvesters roaming. New maps will be added to the game down the line, too.
Then there’s the skill tree, which can upgrade stamina regeneration, looting speed, and the amount of noise you make while you loot, among other things.
Vendors deal out quests, Decks offer up new cosmetics, and Trials introduce a new levelling system for those who love the grind.
The real endgame content comes in the form of Expeditions, which see you saving up supplies to build a caravan so you can venture further in the Rust Belt. This is ARC Raider’s version of optional character resets.
These are multi-week endeavours, and can only be completed within a set time window. If you decide to, your character will be reset, but you’ll attain account perks and special cosmetics.
What we love about all of this is that it’s entirely optional. There’s no mandatory requirement for you to grind the Expeditions to keep up with other players.
If you’re slowly filling up your skill tree, you don’t need to reset if you don’t have the time to start over. It’s a game that respects your time and doesn’t force you through hours of grind just to get to “the good stuff”.
On PS5 Pro, we have no complaints regarding performance. Both the Pro and base PS5 versions aim for 60 frames-per-second, although we have experienced some minor frame rate dips on the base PS5.
Visually, as we’ve alluded to, it looks great in either version, with the Pro attaining a slightly higher (although still variable) resolution.
We’re pleased to find that DualSense haptics are great with this release. Weapons have a nice punchy feel to them, and explosions in particular are quite effective thanks to Sony’s pad. It should be noted, however, that this isn’t anywhere near Sony first-party level.
