ARC Raiders Hands-On Preview: An Extraction Shooter Built for a More Casual Audience

It's easy to be skeptical about a new extraction shooter in 2025. Escape From Tarkov has locked down the genre in its perpetual closed beta status since 2017, and experimental competitors like The Cycle: Frontier have come and gone in the meantime. That's not to mention the fact that Bungie's Marathon is coming out this year, a looming shadow over this hard-core gaming genre. But Embark Studios' ARC Raiders is surprisingly accessible to more casual players, and I can see it carving out its own niche within the space. During a 3-hour online preview event where media members were able to get hands-on experience with solo and squad play in the latest beta build, I got a feel for how each run plays out: sneaking around for loot, hiding from or dispatching robot enemies and engaging other players in combat in a mad dash to the remaining exits on the map. The world of ARC Raiders is perhaps the biggest draw -- humanity is overrun by an onslaught of the ARC, a fleet of different mechanized ... Read full article.