ARC Raiders (not to be confused with Raiders of the Lost Ark) now has a launch date of October 30, 2025.
Extraction shooters are leapfrogging one another at the top of the charts. These games are all about get in, get loot, and get out. This shooter subgenre was made popular by games like Escape from Tarkov and Hunt: Showdown. But now, just as some folks are lamenting the possibility of Ugh yet another extraction shooter, ARC Raiders and Marathon will go head to head this fall.
Bungie's Marathon, which apparently has nothing to do with Bungie's Marathon from the '90s, other than the fact that it's a futuristic shooter, is pure player vs. player, or PvP. Whereas Embark Studios' ARC Raiders is PvPvE—player vs. player vs. environment. That doesn't sound like a big distinction. But it appears to make all the difference in the world, according to play testers.
This ARC Raiders trailer isn't gameplay. It's all aesthetic. But dang if Embark Studios doesn't know how to do aesthetic. Their previous effort, The Finals, is much loved in the Gaming Nexus offices to this day, and The Finals knew how to do aesthetic, too. ARC Raiders is all about '90s analog futurism, and so am I.
We've got folks waking up on the wrong side of the bed, pinning Euro sunglasses posters on the wall, rocking meditation cassette tapes, and looting cans of tuna for kitty back at the crib. This isn't some work-from-home gig. You have to get out there and grind, taking back anything and everything from those ARC robots. "Enlist. Resist."
