GoKawiilThe video game Arc Raiders is set in a lethal imagining of an apocalyptic future for humanity. Survivors have been forced to live deep underground in colonies while mysterious, murderous AI machines patrol the surface. Only the desolate ruins of former cities survive, and reckless human “raiders” take trips topside to conduct dangerous scavenging missions.
For all the menace of these armed robots, called Arcs, the deadly droids are not the biggest threat in this hugely popular game, which was released late last year and has sold more than 14m copies. Raiders operate with the constant anxiety that another person will shoot them on sight and steal their loot. Mercilessness is rewarded in this kind of competitive, high-stakes world.
So it has come as a jolt to the game’s developers at Embark Studios in Sweden that many players are not shooting at each other at all. “It caught us a little bit by surprise,” says executive producer Aleksander Grøndal, who has found that many people play “a more peaceful version of the game than we anticipated”. He is quick to add: “Pleasantly surprised, just to be clear.”
Unintentionally, the game has become a sort of social and psychological experiment, raising questions about game design – and the human condition – that have intrigued social scientists, psychologists and criminologists. Roughly one in five players have never knocked out another raider, and half have knocked out fewer than 10.
View image in fullscreen Mysterious robots, called Arcs, patrol the surface. Photograph: Embark Studios
In most shooters, from Fortnite to Counter-Strike, killing other players is the point – and the way to earn points. (Many of the development team at Embark are experienced with other fast-paced shooter games, including the massive Battlefield and Call of Duty franchises.) And Arc Raiders is part of a growing subgenre of shooting games that are notoriously cutthroat: the extraction shooter, where players compete not just with each other but with the world itself, working against the clock to get out of each round alive and with their scavenged treasure intact. Sessions are intense, with high risk v reward gameplay in which death often comes right at the end of a hard effort gathering loot, as you are ambushed by another player seeking to steal swag. So why aren’t Arc Raiders’ players behaving as mercilessly as the environment calls for?
Grøndal says the team knew there was room for some cooperation. “We always wanted [that] to be the case, but it was a little bit surprising to see how many people latched on to that aspect of the game … It kind of blew the whole extraction shooter open, because it doesn’t always have to be about conflict with other players.”
View image in fullscreen A catalyst for cooperation … Arc Raiders’ Matriarch. Photograph: Embark Studios
What are people doing instead of shooting each other in this ravaged world? Many are teaming up to take down the robot monsters, which range from flying drones to spherical balls that blast fire. Others try to sneak quietly around them to scavenge rare resources. Grøndal says players also hold spontaneous rave parties, where people play music through their microphones.
But often, players are just talking. A YouTube video called The Humans of Arc Raiders, inspired by the photographer who interviews strangers in New York City, includes conversations with randomly encountered players. They talk about family struggles, work lives, depression, autism and, in one case, a lung collapse. In one conversation, a heavily armed player in green armour named Poopy candidly asks another raider: “What’s it like having kids, dude?”
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