Arc Raiders has only been out a day, but it has already surpassed a Steam concurrent peak player count of 264,673, making it one of the biggest extraction shooters ever on Valve’s platform.
I’m playing the hell out of Escape from Duckov.
All the fun of a extraction shooter, only single player.
I want to enjoy the game, but I keep getting got by campers spamming grenades or that one submachine gun. I haven’t even been able to unlock any new weapons or gear beside the base ones because of that, or another map to play on. I’ve played for an hour and 52 minutes, and I really don’t know if I should keep trying or just give up and refund it.
Come on everybody, we need to make a…
Platform gameDoom cloneCommand and Conquer cloneMMOOpen world gameMOBAPUBG cloneExtraction Shooter
Coming soon: Fortnite Extractimum. Eleventy billion players in two days.
Yeah, what we really need is more:
Rogue-like deck builders
I recommend Zero Sievert for anyone interested in the genre.
You can play the flute on top of downed people. Goty honestly.
Not a hard bar for the extraction games published on steam tbh. Glad the genre has a game thats decent after so many years
‘One of the biggest’ You mean ‘one of the only’? Extraction shooters aren’t common that I’m aware of unless I’m out of the loop. The only big one before this I was aware of was Tarkov.
Someone said not Hunt. I disagree. I would say it is.
There is Zero Sievert, which is single player, Gray Zone Warfare, Arena Breakout Infinite (it’s an Asian game with Kernel level AC, so I can’t play it on Linux), Escape from Duckov recently, The Cycle (which I think is dead), and I’m certain I’m missing some.
It’s not a huge genre, but there’s still quite a few.
Escape from Duckov is arguable as it’s single player, as well. I’ll have to check out Zero Sievert.
I don’t think there’s anything about the genre that requires multiplayer. My favorite way to play Escape from Tarkov is the Single Player Tarkov mod, for example. It’s the same game, but without wipes or other players (I play it for no wipes).
Isn’t Deep Rock Galactic an extraction shooter?
It is a shooter where you extract, but it isn’t an extraction shooter. It’s the same genre as Left 4 Dead.
No, not at all. Extraction shooters require you to take in gear, which you can lose. Find loot or better gear and extract with it. If you die during the mission you lose pretty much everything, high stakes are required. DRG has no stakes, you just go and complete a mission for some progression.
And tarkov isn’t even on steam… yet?
Hunt Showdown, The Cycle, Helldivers
The Cycle yes, but an extraction shooter is defined as a game you loot items that you then extract with to use in future runs or sell. Hunt and Helldivers doesn’t have that mechanic at all.
Do you… Not know what Hunt is?
You can make the argument that Helldivers is more of a mission based shooter, and many people will agree with you.
Hunt is absolutely an extraction shooter. You take gear into a raid, fight other players, collect money and even their guns, fight a boss and collect the bounty when you extract.
Yup I was thinking of another game, you’re absolutely correct.
whats an extraction shooter?
You decide what gear to bring with you, get dropped into a map in some fashion, find loot, and try to make it to an extraction point alive. If you die, you lose what you brought with you and anything you found. Add in some AI enemies and PvP, and it can be fun. I feel that the most challenging part of making these types of games is finding that sweet spot between risk and reward. If it’s too punishing, you’ll feel frustrated, like you’re wasting your time. Too easy and it’s boring. ARC found the sweet spot. Very responsive ai enemies, working proximity chat for pvp to call a truce, very well designed maps, just enough help to keep you going back for more, great audio design, and extraction mechanics that result in some tense moments. I’ve played 4 or 5 raids on only one map and so far each time was been unique, tense, and fun. This is my first time playing an extraction shooter and I picked a great one. I’m usually pretty bad at pvp but this one just feels good.
Take on missions, collect loot, leave the area. If you die, you lose everything on you. At least as far as I know, I don’t play any but have seen some escape from tarkov videos.
…there are other kinds of shooters?
You mean other than extraction? Sure, arcade like L4D series, rpg like fallout series. Team death match like Quake or COD series, survival like RUST or 7 days to die. There’s lots.
ah ok. thanks.
It’s a derivative of the strand-type game.
so um. whats a strand-type game. Man am I super out of the loop?
(I’m sorry, I should have specified my sarcasm) It’s a thing the creator of Death Stranding made up to troll journalists who kept asking him what type of game he made.
I…don’t know what an extraction shooter is. Until I’m corrected I will assume everyone is a dentist trying to collect teeth from their opponents.
In fairness, I have never played any other game like Death Stranding.
IGN put out a first preview video of Arc Raiders couple months ago and it was borderline hit piece. The quality of the video was unbelievably bad. They made the game look muddy, dated, and choppy. This wasn’t IGN trying to showcase the game on some realistic typical gaming hardware. In reality the game is well optimized and visually really good on moderate level hardware. I hear the game looks fantastic on consoles. Maybe they’ll do a full review now that the game is finally released but I question the journalistic integrity of IGN.
Maybe someone else on the IGN payroll will do a proper review because a big reason the review was ass is because the reviewer was also ass. He was literally pressing the “ESC” button at the bottom left with a mouse. IMO the biggest crime of this IGN review is that the reviewer still works at IGN.
IGN: “Traditional gamer journalism is dying. Please support honest journalists.”
Also IGN: “Good work, 47. Now publish the article and locate an exit.”They’ve done this with a few other games. I remember the EU5 review being really choppy and it turned out they were running it on like 6-7 year old hardware. It might just be a cost cutting measure to not buy the latest stuff for all their reviewers but I basically ignore most of what they say now.
tbf a lot of people don’t buy a top notch rig for RTS games, so I think it’s entirely valid to test on a dated PC and point out if this is a weakness - but not record gameplay on it exclusively.
If one reviewer has an insufficient PC, assign it to a different person - at least the gameplay recording.
EU5 is grand strategy, not RTS. Just a small correction. RTS is like Starcraft — ~30m matches and then everything goes away. Grand Strategy is ~100+h of constant progress where nothing resets. They’re both strategy games, but they couldn’t be more different.
Uses Kernel Level Anti-Cheat
Aaaand I’m out. Soooo many shitty new games.
I can confirm, both this and The Finals (same developers) works great on Linux. No Kernel level AC for us. I even load into games faster than Windows people I’m playing with, and I just realized this is possibly why.
Kernel Level Anti-Cheat For Windows Only. Embark specifically publishes a build for Proton Users validated by Codeweavers. We don’t have to worry about it :)
This is the same story for The Finals by the way.
It’s a little funny that all my multiplayer games work fine, and the only ones broken on Proton are mainstream ones I hate.
It’s like an invisible filter telling me “These devs are jackasses and the playerbase is toxic. Don’t play this.”
Common Linux W
Not as common as one would like
I never suspected it has kernel level anticheat since I’m rocking it for the last 2 days on Bazzite Linux without any hiccups. Great work, Embark!
I believe for Proton users the kernel level anticheat is substituted for a user level anticheat or is deactivated. Only for windows is the kernel level anticheat utilized.
Yep. Honestly if someone still uses Windows but complains about kernel level anti-cheat they’re hypocrites and only have themselves to blame. If you want sovereignty as a PC user you have to put in the minimum effort and not just sit on your ass and wait until big corp is spoon feeding it to you. That day won‘t come.
Oh interesting…
Its soooo good. I was pleasantly surprised to see he anti cheat work during the server play test. I’ve barely been able to put it down.
Even if you’re a solo player, it tries to priorize you being with other solos, and generally players are friendly if you express that you are as well.
Just be careful for the 3 player squads who will say friendly then turn on you when your back is to them.
Trust gamers… in an online extraction shooter… lol U fukin wot, m8???
ProtonDB reports say that it runs great under Linux, including multiplayer, so I’m not sure if kernel level anti-cheat can really be in use. Maybe it’s just under Windows?
I’m gonna give it a shot, and if it doesn’t work I’ll refund I guess.
I played in during the free weekend earlier in October, only fiddling I had to do was change to Proton Experimental, after that it ran perfect.
It works right out of the box on bazzite
I’m on an Arch distro, worked just fine for me on the free weekend.
I ran it on my steamdeck! :)
Not all kernel level anti-cheat are the same. Riot’s Vanguard and whatever Battlefield 6 uses requires TPM and SecureBoot and they quite invasive. I believe Vanguard just runs in the background even when you’re not running the game. which is awful. Arc Raiders devs made some pragmatic concessions to allows the game to run on Proton and Steam Deck which is pretty good.
And worth pointing out that the Linux version of EAC (which is what Embark games use) runs in user space. It’s literally not kernel level anticheat on Linux.
Out of what? Like 5 extraction shooters? I don’t get the popularity, it’s pretty damn bland and shoves MTX in your face like crazy, but I have been pretty out of touch with the mainstream market for a while now.
It’s bland? You can not like it if you want. That’s fine (if you’ve played it). Don’t make shit up though. In the realm of modern shooters, it definitely isn’t bland. It’s pretty unique. It’s got a style you don’t see anywhere else (though still based in realism), and the gameplay isn’t like many other games.
The enemies in particular are incredible though. That’s where it stands out. They’re actually physically based, and if you shoot out a leg or motor then they adjust to compensate. They used some machine learning to have them run in simulations where they learned how to move with different pieces missing. It’s really special how they feel.
It’s bland. That’s my opinion. If you don’t think so that’s fine, but that is literally what an opinion is. The style is very similar to their old Frostbite games. You can see the EA Star Wars Battlefront in it.
The drones just being physics based isnt all that impressive that it makes the game for me, it’s not exactly revolutionary, similar things have existed before anyway. The gameplay is like you see in a lot of other games, that’s why I think it’s bland. It’s your run-of-the-mill 3rd person shooter, with some basic extraction shooter elements added.
If you enjoy it, fantastic go have fun, doesn’t mean I have to like it and you don’t have to defend the game or your position at all.
What MTX are you talking about?
What extraction shooter doesn’t have MTX? This one? Other than Tarkov (which does) AR is the only one I’ve seen that isnt F2P.
Zero Sievert doesn’t have any, but it’s a single player experience. Still a great game IMHO.
Helldivers 2.
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HD2 is not an extraction shooter.
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It does have MTX in the form of SUPER CREDITS and the stuff you can only buy with SC… You just can also earn SC for free if you grind hard enough.
ARC has the exact same system by the way. It’s the battle pass thing where you choose the things you want each tier, and that includes the credits (Raider Tokens I think is what they’re called here). You can also buy them. They’re used to unlock other battle passes (no others available at the moment besides the one free one) and also cosmetics.
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I don’t think I would call HD2 an extraction shooter. I mean sure, you shoot things and try to extract, but for the same reason HD2 isn’t a RPG just because you can roleplay or an RTS just because you need to make strategic decisions in real time, there’s a lot more to these genres that HD2 doesn’t include. Hell, technically you don’t even need to extract, as the only thing successfully extracting gives you is any samples you find… completing the mission counts as a win regardless.
Skins and such that cost as much as the game itself. The industry has gone crazy and consumers keep sucking it up.
I’ll agree with the other comment; ARC does not shove then in your face. The only time you see that stuff can be purchased is when you go to the customization menu. That’s it. You also get some of the premium currency for free.
I’m pretty confident theyll handle it well because in The Finals I’ve been playing for about ~2 years and have purchased most of the battle passes and some outfit stuff, all with putting no money into the game. This is a $40 game. I suspect it will be handled well.
You can purchase extra stuff, but you can’t say it’s shoved in your face. It definitely is not. It’s just a way to get extra money from whales. I think it’s probably not smart for a game to ship without some MTX at this point. You can make the game cheaper for most people by having the whales fund it. It’s practical.
“Shoves MTX in your face like crazy” = skins in a STORE tab?
Yeah, don’t think I will continue the conversation.
One look at the menus says otherwise, but I’d rather not continue the conversation anyway.
We are certainly not playing the same game, then. All good.
Edit: so, finally back home and started the game. Main screen, after game loads has 0 references to MTX. Zero. Only and only when you go to STORE tab do you get to see anything. Or if you click on RAIDER TOKENS section in the top right. Nothing else, anywhere.
So while I love shitting on game devs, I prefer to do it for a good reason, and not based on lies. You might not like the prices and that’s perfectly ok, noone likes them.
But that does not equal “shoving MTX in your face”.
You know what’s cool? Skins don’t impact gameplay at all! You don’t actually have to buy them!
Things being cosmetic does not justify the outlandish price. 20€ for a skin, emote and some trinkets is a stupid price.
(They forgot we used to change what our character looks like for free)
There are also free cosmetics that you can unlock through quests.
It’s so ingrained it’s actually crazy. All cosmetics should be free.
Exactly! A good example of consumer complacency!
So basically you have not tried it but complain about things you expect because…? Are you an EA or IGN employee or something?
I tried it. It’s pretty bland, I already said that. You are allowed to enjoy it, that was just my opinion. No need to get defensive.
Did you try it by buying it and then refunding? Or do you mean you played the server slam a few weeks ago?
The core gameplay loop hasn’t changed between any of the “beta” tests and release.
So you played the technical test and not just the server slam?
Arc Raiders is a fuckin blast. Having just as much fun with my group on this as we did in like helldivers and hunt showdown, but Arc Raiders has real depth that I think will keep us coming back. This game feels special and I hope it’s can go the distance for my group and I because it’s one of the best group games we’ve played in a while.
Solo is fun too, it’s just a completely different game. It’s more tense, more stealthy, and you’re 100x more likely to find friendly players which is really cool.
It’s hilarious how different people respond to playing it solo. Some people say it’s the tensest thing ever but I’ve also seen a video from an elderly cozy gamer who thought it was the most relaxing thing she’d seen in a while. I’m more in the latter camp, been playing solo since launch and it’s been pretty chill.
Yep. I played solo for the first few hours before friends picked it up. I had a 100% extraction rate over like 10 runs because it seems like 100% of people are not there to fight. They’re just trying to loot and get out. It isn’t worth the risk of dying, especially near the end of a run when you can’t carry anything else anyway.
Playing as a group, it’s probably a 95% chance people won’t talk and just fight. Everyone is in a Discord chat and not using in-game voice and are just anti-social. Occasionally you can extract with other people, but during the raid I don’t think I’ve ever had people be friendly. We even had a team down to one person before and told them they could leave and they still decided to try to kill our three man.
I think both sides make sense here. If you shoot at everything that moves and refuse to cooperate it can be a hell of a ride. But if you focus on looting and are willing to socialize it can be almost a cozy experience. It reminds me of Team Fortress 2 where players would sometimes just make up their own rules mid game and turn everything on it‘s head.
See that’s interesting because it’s more cozy for me when I shoot on sight and more tense for me when I socialize. I’ve lost loot when I’ve tried talking it out and maybe that stings more because assuming I lose some of those engagements I must have saved more loot than lost when talking.
Idk, it’s the social pressure like in a fictional apocalypse of like “will these humans be friendy or not”, they’re unpredictable. Also I think the map has an effect on friendliness as well. Like Dam had a lot of friendly people but blue gate was like 50/50 at best.
It’s just so cool that the game can change so much from playing solo vs squads.
I think it’s the difference between having gear fear and not having gear fear. As someone who comes from Tarkov ARC raiders solo is kind of a walk in the park because gearing up is much easier. Meeting other players is about 50/50, either they start shooting without asking questions or they’re cool after you say “don’t shoot”. I hope this vibe doesn’t die off when the player count drops. Yesterday I had a raid where I met another raider, we agreed to not shoot each other and then impromptu teamed up and took down another team of raiders. We then found a third raider and the three of us extracted together. It’s pretty rare to team in up Tarkov because most people shoot first and ask questions later.
But I can see how it’s absolutely stressful for some people because gear fear makes you think the stakes are much higher than they really are.
Unless people have been playing an insane amount since release, I don’t think anyone’s really going out into a raid with the equivalent of late wipe geared up Tarkov equipment. I’ve barely seen anyone tossing out wolfpacks, I haven’t seen anyone using a hullcracker or an equalizer, and I haven’t taking any damage from a bettina yet. And has anyone seen a Jupiter in game?
All in all I agree with you though, this definitely is t Tarkov, and the people who are stressed are probably pretty new to the whole extraction shooter thing. I was running some raids with a finals friend and an old Tarkov mate, and we were just vibing dude. Super chill. And yeah anything I go in with right now I can pretty easily recraft in an instant. The tiered crafting mechanics seem way more intuitive than in Tarkov. I really like how the damage is governed by the weapon, not the bullet type. Losing a gun might sting for a second, but at least I’m not micromanaging my ap rounds and shit. Or holy fuck I forgot about this, stacking mags with ap at the top and staggering as you get through the 30. Although putting tracers as the last 5 like I did irl was always fun.
I just picked it up to play with a couple buds, and it’s GOOD. $39.99 good? No, just good. The vibe is great, the gunplay feels good, the extraction is forgiving. Definitely worth the price in my opinion.
Wait, you say it‘s not $39.99 good but still worth the price? That‘s as much of a direct contradiction as possible.
Fair, but what I’m saying is that it’s not only worth the price but I’d pay more having played it. 60 bucks? Probably not because I know I’m not that into extraction shooters, but it doesn’t feel like a discount game. Also, I was in my cups when I typed that.
How do people feel about this company using generative AI? That was a concern of mine around The Finals; they’ve defended the decision on voice acting and it made me wonder where else they’re using it.
EDIT: Learned some new things from the responses, certainly an interesting situation. I’ll consider them.
To defend the voice acting in The Finals - they obtained the consent for all the voice actors they use, and they pay them a commission for each new line they generate. It’s believed that one of the reasons they made that decision was to have things like improvised dialogue possible by the announcers (Scotty and June), for example.
They definitely aren’t cheating people out of money, fortunately.
Embark released blog posts about how they’re integrating AI into their development workflow back in 2019/2020. The entire studio was founded by former Dice devs bc they were burned out with game development and had quit, then realized they could build tools and pipelines that allowed them to focus on the fun parts of game development, and got together to form Embark and do exactly that. Their vision preceded the vast majority of the public’s awareness of AI, and was not influenced by the current wave of LLMs and generative ai.
If you want to hate feel free that’s your prerogative, but be aware that anything Embark makes is going to be built on tools and pipelines that deeply integrate some form of AI/ML, and just stay away from anything the studio makes. It’s your loss really because their games are the first in a long time (in their genres) that I can feel the love the devs poured in seeping from every single aspect of the game, but again it’s your prerogative.
I mean, does anything in The Finals or this game feel like slop?
I don’t mind. The result speaks for itself
massive corpo. fuck 'em.
giant companies are a greater evil than generative AI in the hands of the small
still against the whole AI situation in general right now, but doubly against giant corpos using it to increase wealth
Looks cool. The third person perspective is much overrated in my opinion; controlling a person is not a good lesson to learn – being one, is.
Ive been utterly sick of first person shooters for over 20 years. Any deviation from that is a win.
But if it’s not 3rd person you can’t see the badass skin you blew $20 on.
Edit: I agree, by the way. I hate over the shoulder aiming.
That is unironically the main reason why it’s third person.
