What is an extraction shooter? The article did not explain, which it really should have.
Basically a bunch of players are dropped into a game map, and normally your objective is to go around and collect as much loot as possible, then after some time or you’re ready to leave, you need to find the extraction point - this will save your loot and that run is over.
Some extraction shooters are PvE, and some are PvP, some are both. If you get killed with all your loot before you get to the extraction point you lose it all. It can be pretty stressful, and unbalanced if its PvP where some players play much more then you do therefore have better weapons etc
Arc Raiders may be the most exciting PvPvE launch I’ve had in a long while. A lot of the comments in this thread seem negative, but I would bet money this game is going to be successful for at least the first 6 months. It’s just too good right out of the gate.
As for 1 year+, depends on how well the company is at producing new material. I think they have something special with this game. If Hunger comes out, or Marathon (lol), and does something just as compelling I could see Arc having a hard time but I doubt Hunger will eat the same player base and I doubt Marathon will feel very good (they seem like they have too many problems at this point).
Not a big surprise. The genre is a niche, the hype has been building for years, and Arc Raiders looks like it scratches that itch many players want right now. Especially disillusioned Tarkov and Hunt Showdown players have high hopes for it. Anyone who‘s into multiplayer FPS knows The Finals is the freshest game in it‘s genre in over a decade so the devs have already proven they can make things at least interesting and fresh.
But again, the genre is a total niche with not much competition as of now. I think that‘s mostly why.
I’ve been playing it and it’s pretty fun
They must have a decent marketing budget because I’ve seen A LOT of big streamers playing it. It looked ok. not my cup o tea.
also funny note that the new Call of Duty apparently censors “ARC Raiders” in the in game chat.
I doubt they have a huge marketing budget. Perhaps they‘re using it in a clever way but I doubt Nexon bets everything on 0 here when The Finals only did ok. Extraction shooters is a niche that‘s starving for content. Somehow it gained a reputation for being everywhere when in reality there don‘t even exist 5 of them with a decent player size. The shooter genre is huge and people want something that isn‘t just a battle royale for once.
I fucking hate living in today’s world.
You can’t even talk about different games while playing certain ones, like what bullshit is that? I really feel like corporations are policing people’s lives nowadays, what with Nintendo being shitty to everyone, CoD not letting you talk about certain other games in-game, YouTube and other social media companies censoring any goddamn word that has even the slightest negative connotations (kill, suicide, pedophile, etc.}
Like the world just feels so infantilized and people can’t actually be people anymore, like we all need to be told what to do.
And in the end, I think it could all be explained with the rise of fascism literally everywhere right now. This world and existence fuckin sucks.
But then we have the indie devs that constantly praise each other, include in-game references to their inspirations or blog about what blast they’re having while playing a competitors game.
Those are a few different incentive systems in place. YouTube does what it does to be friendly to advertisers. Call of Duty does what it does because they’re too stupid to realize that censoring mention of your competitors actually draws more attention to them. But you’re here on Lemmy right now, presumably, because you were fed up with something on reddit and decided to move, and you can do the same with which video games you play.
Can’t wait for the news about it inevitably dropping in players. Followed by news of permanent server shutdown within the next 2 years (I’m being extremely generous.)
God forbid people enjoying their little coop adventures. I will never understand this community’s hate boner for everything online. Just stick to your single player stuff and be happy. Why dig trenches for something that doesn‘t affect you?
We used to get multiplayer games that weren’t dependent on some server that we don’t control, and now they’ve all turned into this. Then we read about all the layoffs that happened because this model is inherently unsustainable, and we have a giant gap in the medium’s history of games that we used to be able to play but now cannot because the business made a gamble on a type of game that sometimes becomes a money printer.
Oh it‘s that empty layoff argument again. Nevermind.
It’s only empty if you haven’t been paying attention.
I dont hate coop online games. I hate PvEvP Extraction Looter Shooters.
How many have you played?
Please note that the genre is PvEvP Extraction Looter Shooters. So some games, like Deep Rock Galactic and Helldivers 2, are missing from the list because they do not fit that category.
I have tried to play (ie, only played a few hours each, not like multiple days):
- The Cycle Frontier
- Escape from Tarkov
- ARC Raiders (the closed beta in June 2023)
- Dark and Darker
- Delta Force Hazard Ops
- Lost Light
- Marauders
- Hunt Showdown
- Gray Zone Warfare
- Incursion Red River
Games that I tried that don’t exactly fit the genre but are close enough I feel like I should include them:
- Steel Hunters (the closed playtest in March 2023)
- Sea of Thieves
- SYNDUALITY: Echo of Ada
- Dungeon Stalkers
Its not that I haven’t given the genre an honest go.
I hate that death means I lose not only the items I picked up, but also the items I brought into a match. The behaviour of players in this particular genre is almost always peak toxic. I am thankful that the genre exists, because it is a sponge taking some of the toxic people from other games. The people that derive fun and pleasure purely from ruining someone else’s game experience (like cheating, harassing, etc.) It is not a genre of game I enjoy, because some other players always ruin the fun.
Some games had a PvE mode, which was fine but the loot was limited to be basically useless. I don’t understand why they wouldn’t just have separated inventories, and perhaps allow transfers of items below a set gear level to keep the PvP economy balanced.
To be fair, I told my friends that I thought The Finals would last only 7 months, but it stabilized around a little north of 10k concurrent players, which is probably fewer than the devs were hoping for but enough to keep it going.
Their handling of The Finals is a big reason I’m going to invest some time and money into Arc Raiders. It’s a really beautiful game with amazing sound design. I urge anyone who isn’t generally into extraction shooters to give it a shot this weekend, I don’t mind dying and losing shit as long as I’m making progress on missions and whatnot.
I’ve been looking into this recently because The Algorithm wanted me to (I don’t always do what The Algorithm wants, but sometimes it’s really fucking spot-on so maybe I’m just institutionalized) and I simply don’t see why this is really any different from anything else available.
Is it really that much better? Is it the same thing just with better execution? As we’ve seen time and again, popular doesn’t always mean good.
It’s the best extraction shooter I’ve played in the genre by like a country mile. Obviously we haven’t seen what the full economy looks like or endgame but there isn’t a single component that doesn’t outclass the competition in my opinion.
Like the immersion is top tier with the sounds, the graphics, the feedback, the movement. It feels really good.
The gameplay is also top notch and does things others in the genre don’t do. Namely:
- variable game length that feels rewarding. I can do a 5-10 min run and get quick and dirty loot with a free load out or I can stay in the map for the full 45 and look for exactly what I want.
- the items themselves are compelling game play pieces. Like the rare weapons are full on laser rifles and mini missile grenades - they’re cool and change how you play, not your power level. Like in Gray Zone Warfare nothing I get feels meaningful different or cool, other than the bullet spongy nature of higher level zones and even that’s not super noticeable. I had no reason to want to chase loot in that game.
- the meta game is sick, probably comparable to Tarkov (although I didn’t play enough to actually compare this). Every match I feel like I’m working towards a goal of making the gear floor higher and gear ceiling easier to attain. Again, we need to see what the full game is like but collecting recipes, upgrading my workbenches, and collecting targeted materials feels good.
I’m positive I’ll get 3+ months of good fun out of this before I might start mixing other things back in. If the end game is really good I’ll be able to make it 5+ months with no content additions I think. The real question for any multiplayer game is can they add material at a fast enough pace to keep it compelling long term. We’ll have to see, but they have dozens of levers to pull on compared to a traditional fps or PvE game. New ARC, new bosses, new map mods, new events, new maps, new guns, new gadgets, new subsystems, new modes. Lot of different angles they can add to in parallel.
My buddy keeps trying to get me into shooters. Most are boring as hell with almost zero gameplay innovation from games I played 20 years ago.
You should check out Embark Studios’ (ARC Raiders dev) other game, The Finals. Literally the most innovative FPS I’ve ever played, it completely reinvents the competitive shooter genre.
The developer behind this game (Embark Studios) is trying to push the genre forward with new gamemodes and approaches to combat design.
Like the Finals has it’s own unique gamemode (Cashout) that doesn’t really exist anywhere else, and is a ton of fun with the amount of unique encounters you can have throughout the game (with the fully destructible environments with physics allowing you to completely up-end the map layout). There’s no “one answer” to solve a problem, and while mechanical aim and good listening for the enemy players will obviously help you, you’ll need to change your mindset from the shooter status quo because the objectives and combat can flow quite differently.
Arc Raiders is still in testing, but it’s designed to be an entirely 3rd person extraction shooter with an emphasis on sound design and careful maneuvering and movement (make too much noise, you attract a robot or a human’s attention. Move too slowly, you may be leaving loot behind or losing out on a good position like the high ground). It even features Uncharted style mantling and climbing, which I absolutely adore.
There is a lot of shooter slop these days, I agree. But these guys are definitely trying to change that.
Im just waiting for a sequel to battlefield 2142. 2142 was peak fps for me and nothing has come close since.
Planetside 2 did it for me, but nothing since :/
I miss my outfit. Briggs server was so wholesome, almost everyone knew everyone.
I am old because, for me, my favorite was battlefield 1942. Had so much fun, and it wasn’t as competitive, which i enjoyed even more.
Yeah I had some fun with Day-Z and Player Unknown’s Battle Royale, but the repetitive rounds in those sorts of mods got boring to me pretty quickly. Especially the scavenging for gear each time, I just wanted to battle but it feels like work.
I have the same sort of issue with RTS games where you are in a race to build your base and units, I don’t enjoy speed harvesting and building.
That and most of them now are GaaS scams.
The release window for Arc Raiders could not be worse. Right between Battlefield 6 and Tarkov 1.0. Also a few weeks ago Arena Breakout Infinite released, which is also a very competent extraction shooter, that I had lots of fun with before Bf6.
This activity is a good sign for Arc Raiders, however it’s only a free playtest while the full release will cost 40€. How many of those players enjoying it now will actually cough up this much money for a game in a genre with many failed games before it? Dark and Darker was hugely popular during its last playtest and rapidly declined after the paid (Early Access) release.
I hope that they’re successful with Arc Raiders. I think the extraction genre is super interesting and needs more healthy choices that are not Tarkov (which has so many problems of its own).
I mean Fortnite‘s release window couldn‘t have been worse and it defined the entire genre going forward. In the end people will stick with what‘s best and it could be any of those three and more. I think there is something poetic about Embark going head to head with Battlefield 6 as if to prove themselves. Arc Raiders has good momentum. Now it needs to land properly and we‘ll see from there.
