Review: ARC Raiders (PS5) – A Triumph in Multiplayer Immersion

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ARC Raiders is easily one of the best multiplayer games currently on PS5.

Embark Studios’ second game is a fantastic extraction shooter that skillfully blends intense, challenging gameplay with a cinematic, immersive experience. It’s both accessible to newcomers and deeply enjoyable for veteran players.

ARC Raiders is set in a post-apocalyptic world where most of humanity has fled to the stars.

After the attack, survivors are driven into hiding while deadly ARC robots constantly patrol the world above. However, a daring group called Raiders still risk going to the surface, searching for valuable items and treasure.

So, the whole game basically works like this: you head out into the world, grab all the good stuff you can find, and then try to get back to base without getting killed by robots or other players. The catch? If you do die, you lose absolutely everything you’re carrying. It’s a real risk-reward system!

This game uses a familiar core idea seen in titles like Hunt: Showdown and the forthcoming Marathon – you enter, grab what you need, and then try to escape.

ARC Raiders is unique because it offers a satisfying experience whether you have a little time to play or want to invest for the long haul.

Whether you end up loving it or not, ARC Raiders truly shines with its incredible graphics and sound design.

As a fan, I’d say the visuals are really cool – it feels like Star Wars meets nature reclaiming ancient ruins. Honestly, some of the environments genuinely reminded me of the haunting beauty of The Last of Us.

The game features a striking, rugged aesthetic. Buildings are covered in greenery, and decaying remnants of old technology and battles – like rusted vehicles and broken robots – are scattered around. Weapons and clothing are similarly worn and patched together, giving the Raiders a distinctive, fitting style. It’s a visually impressive game.

The game features four unique maps, each with its own atmosphere. For example, Buried City feels tight and gritty with its narrow, sandy streets, while Blue Gate offers a wide-open, mountainous landscape – a stark difference between the two.

The experience is completed with a rich, cinematic sound that feels both engaging and realistically flawed.

The sound isn’t crystal clear like in games such as Call of Duty. Instead, it’s intentionally rough around the edges – distorted, with echoes, and a bit muffled. This creates a strong sense of place, making the environments feel more real and drawing you deeper into the game’s world.

The sound design isn’t just background noise; it actively enhances the gameplay. You’ll hear important cues like the distant signals of an incoming extraction or the warning cry of a Snitch, alerting you to nearby enemy Raiders.

So many of your gameplay choices can be informed purely through the sound design.

Simply put, ARC Raiders is stunning to look at and listen to. But it’s more than just pretty; the way the game unfolds during each match feels unique and creates its own narrative, often giving you the feeling of playing a carefully designed single-player game.

Sometimes you’re carefully moving through dark corridors, hunting down thieves. Other times, you’re racing to get away with valuable items, dodging gunfire and explosions.

The game feels really good to play. The controls are responsive, the weapons have satisfying impact, and movement feels realistic. The team behind this game clearly knows how to make a great shooter, having previously delivered a top-notch first-person experience, and they’ve successfully brought that expertise to a third-person perspective.

Playing with real people adds an unpredictable element to the game. We’ve often been surprised by players who lure us into traps. Plus, the social aspect means you can even team up – though sometimes temporarily – with other players you meet.

We’ve been surprised by how formidable the enemy AI can be. Things can escalate rapidly if you’re not cautious.

Hornets gradually reduce your defenses, wasps briefly paralyze you, snitches summon reinforcements, and being targeted by a Rocketeer is almost certainly fatal.

The game keeps you constantly alert. You can go from having great gear to being eliminated in an instant – that weapon you spent time building is suddenly gone. That push and pull between risk and reward is central to the extraction shooter genre, and ARC Raiders gets the balance just right.

The game feels very different depending on whether you play with friends or by yourself. Playing with a team – whether it’s your friends or other players you meet – is a lot of fun because you can talk strategy, share goals, and work together to overcome challenges.

The game doesn’t offer options for playing alone or with a partner, so if you start playing by yourself, you’ll be facing teams of three players. This can create a challenging and often unfair experience, where you’ll likely feel outnumbered and at a disadvantage.

Whether you prefer playing alone or with friends, what makes ARC Raiders so addictive? The game includes several features designed to keep players engaged and coming back for more.

The main part of the game involves collecting resources, improving your workshop, and creating better equipment for each attempt.

The game features a variety of challenges on each map, including nighttime encounters and large, wandering enemies. More maps will be released in the future.

As a player, I really appreciate how the skill tree lets you customize your character. You can improve things like how quickly your stamina recovers, how fast you can loot stuff, and even how much noise you make while you’re searching – which is super helpful for stealth! It’s a great way to tailor the experience to your playstyle.

Vendors give out missions, you can unlock new looks with Decks, and Trials let dedicated players level up through challenges.

The main long-term goal in the game is Expeditions. You’ll gather resources to create a caravan and explore deeper into the Rust Belt. Think of these as a way to essentially start your character over, but with a new challenge, similar to optional resets in other games.

These challenges take several weeks to finish and have a specific deadline. If you participate, your character will be restarted, but you’ll earn rewards like account benefits and unique items.

The best part is, everything is completely optional. You don’t have to complete the Expeditions if you don’t want to – it won’t put you behind other players.

You don’t have to worry about completely rebuilding your character if you’re making steady progress. The game understands that your time is valuable and avoids making you repeat tedious tasks just to reach the most enjoyable parts.

As a PlayStation fan, I can confidently say the PS5 Pro runs flawlessly – performance is top-notch! Both it and the regular PS5 are targeting a smooth 60 frames per second, but I did notice a few tiny drops in frame rate on the base model, though it wasn’t a big deal.

Both versions look good, though the Pro model offers a slightly sharper picture, though the difference can vary.

We’re happy to report the DualSense controller’s haptic feedback works really well in this version. Guns feel satisfyingly impactful, and explosions are especially impressive thanks to the controller. However, the overall experience isn’t quite as polished as games made directly by Sony themselves.

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2025-10-31 23:08