Nothing hits quite like crawling your way to a hard-earned exfil after getting absolutely shredded in the raid before. It’s an emotional rollercoaster that’ll break your heart, then hand it back to you like an ex-girlfriend you can’t quit. From your first boot-shaking sprint across the surface to the moment you start hunting other raiders for sport, every match will leave you wanting another. Hands down, ARC Raiders is my favorite PvP shooter in years.
Pros
- +
Unreal Engine 5 visuals with zero performance issues.
- +
Unrivaled emotional moment-to-moment gameplay.
- +
The best PvP game to release all year.
Cons
No doubles playlist
Some settings can be used for a competitive advantage
Why you can trust Windows Central Our expert reviewers spend hours te…
Nothing hits quite like crawling your way to a hard-earned exfil after getting absolutely shredded in the raid before. It’s an emotional rollercoaster that’ll break your heart, then hand it back to you like an ex-girlfriend you can’t quit. From your first boot-shaking sprint across the surface to the moment you start hunting other raiders for sport, every match will leave you wanting another. Hands down, ARC Raiders is my favorite PvP shooter in years.
Pros
- +
Unreal Engine 5 visuals with zero performance issues.
- +
Unrivaled emotional moment-to-moment gameplay.
- +
The best PvP game to release all year.
Cons
No doubles playlist
Some settings can be used for a competitive advantage
Why you can trust Windows Central Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.
Jump to:
- What is it?
- PvPvE gameplay
- Gameplay and features
- Visuals and audio
- What’s not so great?
- My final thoughts
I remember a few years ago, when Embark Studios first hit the mainstream. Two projects were in the works: a First-person competitive shooter called The Finals and another that would eventually become ARC Raiders.
At the time, the definition of what ARC Raiders was to become wasn’t set in stone. In fact, ARC Raiders was their first project, initially intended for release in 2022. At the time, they decided to put more resources into a new PvP gamemode they were testing before release.
Why You Should Trust Me
Why You Should Trust Me
Michael Hoglund
I’ve been playing PvP games since the golden era of Nintendo 64. From being the number one FFA player on Rainbow Six Vegas 2, to becoming a Master Prestige in multiple Call of Duty games. Shooters are my life, and winning for me has become easy. The extraction and survival genres have turned into my all-time favorites.
ARC Raiders: What is it?
There’s beauty and death wherever you look. (Image credit: Michael Hoglund)
When you think of an extraction shooter, most people will name Escape from Tarkov. A full-on, lifelike experience that questions both the player’s mastery and time allotment. No one merely *plays *something like Tarkov; you live it.
ARC Raiders
**Release date: **Oct. 30, 2025 **Developer: **Embark Studios **Publisher: **Embark Studios **Genre: **Third-person extraction shooter **Players: **1-3 players (multiplayer) **Install size: **32.72 GB **Playtime: **100+ Hours **Platforms: **Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, PlayStation 5 **Xbox Game Pass: **No **Reviewed on: **Windows PC
Participants dedicate thousands upon thousands of hours to that game, honing their craft to perfection in an attempt to shave microseconds off their time-to-kill.
Which barrel goes with the Molot Arms Simonov OP-SKS 7.62x39 Carbine? Which of the 25 (actual number) of pistol grips is best for the Kalashnikov AK-74M 5.45x39 Assault Rifle?
ARC Raiders asks the question, what if we took the most fun aspects of the extraction shooter genre and blended them into something both casual and competitive gamers can appreciate?
Not to say that ARC Raiders is just a casual Tarkov, as that’s a disservice to the game to say so.
What it is is almost incomparable to Tarkov. A faster, mechanic-questioning experience that challenges the player in similar ways to Tarkov, but also contests morality. Do you kill or fight together to complete your objectives?
ARC Raiders launched on October 20, 2025, and is available for Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, and PlayStation 5.
ARC Raiders: was $39.99now $34.99 at Loaded.com
Nothing hits quite like crawling your way to a hard-earned exfil after getting absolutely shredded in the raid before. It’s an emotional rollercoaster that’ll break your heart, then hand it back to you like an ex-girlfriend you can’t quit. From your first boot-shaking sprint across the surface to the moment you start hunting other raiders for sport, every match will leave you wanting another. Hands down, ARC Raiders is my favorite PvP shooter in years.
ARC Raiders: PvPvE Gameplay perfected
Run together, die together. (Image credit: Michael Hoglund)
Embark Studios has created a masterful blend of PvE and PvP combat that shifts with each match, with entirely different subplots driven by the superficial difference between solo and trio play. In a group, each and every person feels stronger through the connection to another. Together, you’re never alone.
While solo, the fear of death permeates the atmosphere to a greater degree. On the surface, during a raid, there’s no one around to pick you up if you go down, that is, unless you’ve allied with another player.
You see, the main driver of ARC Raiders is not human-on-human combat, but humanity against robots. The people of Earth face extinction under the threat of the ARC that has populated the surface. The player acts as a Raider, who rises to the surface of the planet to scan and scavenge for parts, weapons, and other trinkets to return to the base below, dubbed Speranza.
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I know my way around shooters.(Image credit: Michael Hoglund)
Interactions between players have become their own mechanic thanks to this immediate, deafening threat of ARC robots. When faced with a player in front of you who has yet to spot you, do you down them and loot their corpse, or reach out in hopes you both can work together to take down one of the many terrifying creations that walk the area?
In many instances, I found myself barreling ahead, deciding I would trust just about every single person I came across. “Friendly, friendly,” or “Don’t shoot!” became the de facto response whenever I saw a player. For the most part, this culminated in a mutual relationship between one another, sometimes, upwards of 7 different players working together.
Some solo raids become this collaboration greater than any game I’ve seen. (Image credit: Michael Hoglund)
The complexity of this has led to some of the greatest moments I’ve ever had in gaming. Triumphantly dominating my first Leaper using free loadouts, or figuring out one of the many location-based puzzles to enter some of the better loot areas.
As I leveled my Raider and jumped in with better gear, this need for companionship to level the playing field began to subside. A well-placed Wolfpack nade would nearly one-shot any major enemy other than the Queen. I didn’t need the help of others to do this.
That, in turn, led to more gear fear as I’d pack myself with these grenades to harvest the parts. Other players would witness these takedowns and see an easy opportunity to rat me out for the parts I’d won in combat. Not that they’d succeed, but damn, did they try.
ARC Raiders: A masterfully crafted gameplay loop
Fight for survival. (Image credit: Michael Hoglund)
Another remarkable aspect has been the leveling and workshop systems. From acquiring gear in raids to creating your own, there’s an untold number of things to keep player engagement at an all-time peak.
Completing quests gives easy rewards like money, items, and weapons. So if raiding the loot off of enemies isn’t your thing, or you just ain’t good enough, quests have your back. They vary between ARC hunting, looting, and getting inside some location to gather information for one of the quest givers.
While these quests aren’t anything that will win a Pulitzer prize, they’re still enough to keep players busy working toward goals both together and individually. These quests, at least at launch, have largely pushed players in solo play to a more cooperative experience.
Spawning in feels cinematic all by itself. (Image credit: Michael Hoglund)
Even better are the nutty levels of things players can do on each map. Take Blue Ridge, for example —the current prettiest map in the game. There are multiple areas on the map to call in supply drops, complete loot room puzzles, unlockable doors, and other open-ended loot areas.
There’s something for every type of player to enjoy. So much so that I constantly find myself altering my plans entirely based on spawn locations. Each player in your squad can bring in keys and hit whatever spot you spawn by, but maybe there’s another team taking on a Rocketeer, and you just so happen to have their flanks.
Whatever the case, I can guarantee that most people who are fans of shooters will find multiple things they love about this game. There’s a reason it keeps breaking its own player count record on Steam.
I’d also like to mention that ARC Raiders has no dedicated PvE mode. For some, that’s a total turn-off. For me, well, I really love that it’s a dedicated PvPvE game, and I hope they keep it as such for years to come.
ARC Raiders: A gorgeous game that runs beyond expectations
An Unreal Engine 5 game that both looks and performs to perfection. (Image credit: Michael Hoglund)
Unreal Engine 5 has gotten a lot of hate as of late. Be it from the recently released Outer Worlds 2, or the too-powerful-to-run Borderlands 4. While it’s been incredibly easy to blame these shortfalls on Unreal Engine 5, ARC Raiders (and quite a few other games) are proof against that idea.
While ARC Raiders technically runs on an Unreal Engine 5 branch named NvRTX, this is a testament to what Unreal Engine 5 can do when used correctly. Often, it would seem that many developers use shortcuts and abuse Lumen, Nanite, level streaming, and shader compilation. ARC Raiders said, “forget that” and decided to target performance first, while creating one of the most beautiful, captivating shooters I’ve seen in years.
Even lower floors are dimly lit in ominous and fascinating ways. (Image credit: Michael Hoglund)
Running on Epic settings, with global illumination and everything else set to max at 1440p, I’m reaching heights of 200 FPS on my 5080 GPU and 9800X3D. My 4060 hits above 144Hz at 1080p without the use of any DLSS. The game is insanely optimized!
As for the audio? Chef’s kiss. I can hear everything around me at all times, from footsteps to shots in the distance. The audio in ARC Raiders is some of the best I’ve ever come across for any online multiplayer game. I’ve seen zero complaints from anyone, anywhere, asking for audio to be tuned.
ARC Raiders: What’s not so great?
Average Joe’s trained me for these moments. (Image credit: Michael Hoglund)
No game is perfect. There’s always one or two things, at the very least, that developers could tweak or work on to make the product better. ARC Raiders isn’t any different, but at least the current problems I have with the game aren’t anything terrifying or unfixable.
First of all, ARC Raiders is in desperate need of a duo playlist. When paired with a single friend, you’ll often find yourself up against full three-person squads rather than other players.
While that doesn’t mean you can’t win, it definitely gives the upper hand to any competent team that doesn’t have individual players getting cut off from the rest of their team. If you find yourself in a building, outplaying a trio of equal skill comes down to luck rather than balance.
An all-too familiar flare in the distance will become a warning for some, by a beacon for players like me. (Image credit: Michael Hoglund)
Another issue I have is competitive settings. Most competitive gamers will lower settings to hit higher frames, but when players like me are already hitting 200, why not let the beauty shine through? Well, because that puts you at a disadvantage.
You see, lowering your foliage setting gives a performance boost, yes, but it also reduces the visual clutter of trees and bushes in areas, making players who might be hiding look like sitting ducks in the middle of an empty parking lot. In a competitive game environment, no player should ever see structure differently, at least not to the point where one player can basically see through a wall while the other can’t.
Embark, I beg you, if you can’t force every player to a higher setting, then find some sort of middle ground that gives all players the same look. Don’t disadvantage gamers who just want to play your game at its best settings.
ARC Raiders: My final thoughts
The Queen is an unstoppable monster that will take a whole team to take down, or one lucky and patient solo player who comes packed with 200 rounds for their Hullcracker grenade-launcher. (Image credit: Michael Hoglund)
✅You should buy this if...
- You love extraction shooters
ARC Raiders is how an extraction shooter is done. If I dare say so, it’s the current bar for others in the genre to reach for. That is, unless you’re looking for the stark realism of Escape from Tarkov.
- You enjoy mental warfare
ARC Raiders will keep players on their toes in both solo and trio settings. Coming across an enemy player as a solo is a different experience each and every time. Say one too many things, like “Yeah, I found some great loot,” and that guy you’re teamed with just found his next dinner.
❌You should not buy this if...
- You don’t like third-person shooters
I’ve heard a number of folks who refuse to play just because it’s third-person, which is an absolute shame. I can’t tell them they’re wrong, but if someone absolutely does not like it when players can look around a corner before you see them, then you’ll want to sit it out.
- You want a pure PvE game mode.
ARC Raiders doesn’t have a pure PvE game mode, as a result, I’ve seen some players refusing to buy it or outright uninstalling it. The game is advertised as PvPvE, with the PvP first and foremost. If you’re not willing to go through the hardships and emotional rollercoaster of losing and regaining loot, then this game isn’t for you.
ARC Raiders turned out exactly like I always pictured it in my head. After grinding through all those alphas, betas, and server slams over the years, I built up this perfect vision of the game, figuring Embark could never pull it off.
You get me, don’t you? That one title you hear about, the ultimate dream game you have been craving forever. Then it drops, and it’s close, but not quite. ARC Raiders is that for me. Except this time, after years of letdowns, it straight up delivered on every bit of the hype.
Sure, it won’t snag Game of the Year. Multiplayer shooters just don’t. Still, ARC Raiders is the best PvP multiplayer game to launch in years. And yeah, that’s right after putting what I’d call “gamer hours” into my BAE, Battlefield 6.
This game nailed taking an already solid genre and tweaking it just ever so slightly to create something truly unique in the space. I can’t help but feel positive about the current and future state of ARC Raiders in the hands of Embark Studios. Cheers!
ARC Raiders
Nothing hits quite like crawling your way to a hard-earned exfil after getting absolutely shredded in the raid before. It’s an emotional rollercoaster that’ll break your heart, then hand it back to you like an ex-girlfriend you can’t quit. From your first boot-shaking sprint across the surface to the moment you start hunting other raiders for sport, every match will leave you wanting another. Hands down, ARC Raiders is my favorite PvP shooter in years.
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Contributor
Michael has been gaming since he was five when his mother first bought a Super Nintendo from Blockbuster. Having written for a now-defunct website in the past, he’s joined Windows Central as a contributor to spreading his 30+ years of love for gaming with everyone he can. His favorites include Red Dead Redemption, all the way to the controversial Dark Souls 2.
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