Arc Raiders, the next game from The Finals developer Embark Studios, launches on October 30, 2025 on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
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As a PvPvE extraction shooter, Arc Raiders sees you setting out to explore and loot the remains of a fallen civilization still under control of a lethal artificial intelligence system known as “Arc.”
The game has already been in the hands of players via a few technical tests and the reaction has been overwhelmingly positive. Still, you might not know much about Arc Raiders or extraction shooters as a genre, and as someone who’s pretty excited about the game, I’d like to do what I can to make it as approachable as possible for potential players. So let’s break down everything you need to know about this game ahead of its release, from how many maps the game provides to the overall flow of your average match.
It’s you versus them, and also them
Arc Raiders is a PvPvE extraction shooter. That means you and a team of up to three are fighting real humans as well as the game’s computer-controlled bots, but your main “goal” is to leave the map alive within a certain time–which in theory you could do without firing a single shot. You can leave via multiple elevators on the map, each of which have a timer on them. You can also find or buy keys to escape hatches that make for an even speedier getaway.
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With both people and patrolling enemy AI in the mix, there are a wide variety of emergent possibilities as different players, each with their own playstyles and agendas, intersect with the threats on the map. It makes for an intense game in which you need to think a few steps ahead of each action you take, and always keep an escape route in mind should you realize you’ve gotten yourself in over your head.
Get out alive, and you keep everything you came in with, plus whatever you found. Die, and you’ll lose everything. You do have access to a “safe pocket” in your inventory, however, where you can stash a lone precious item to make it to the other side should you perish.
As you explore the maps, you’ll find countless places to loot. Abandoned cars, file cabinets and desk drawers from empty offices and facilities, storage containers, and much more.
You’ll also have a variety of quests you can take on, some of which ask you to loot specific items, while others ask you to take down some of the game’s bots, or “Arc” as they’re referred to in-universe. Quest progress is maintained even if you die, and you’ll earn XP after each match which can be used to improve your character’s stats, so death is not a total loss.
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When you’re not out on the field scavenging for parts from a fallen world, you’ll be at home in “Speranza,” your hub for launching games, crafting, and trading. Arc Raiders has a thorough crafting system; you can build weapons, gadgets, restorative items such as shield rechargers and bandages, and more. You can also trade with a variety of NPCs.
You als0 have a pet rooster named Scrappy who’s always happy to see you after a match, giving you some minor crafting supplies when you return. If you’ve had a bad streak of losses, Scrappy will give you extra crafting materials as a consolation for your repeat losses.
Zoom out, and we see the loop of the game: Venture out onto the maps, find what you can, avoid or engage in battles with humans or machines, return home and build better gear for your next run.
A closer look at Arc Raiders’ maps on launch
Arc Raiders launches with four main maps, each set in a post-apocalyptic Italy with their own unique difficulty levels and points-of-interest. These maps are: Dam Battlegrounds, Buried City, the Spaceport, and the Blue Gate. There’s also a practice range and a mysterious location called “Stella Montis” which we don’t know a whole lot about ahead of release.
The maps offer up a nice level of variety. Dam Battlegrounds, with its thick swamps and forests, makes for some brutal, Predator-esque battles and chase scenarios.
Buried City is a smaller, more urban setting with some excellent sightlines across the tops of its roofs (there are going to be some intense sniper battles here, I can already tell).
The Spaceport is another large map. My time on this map during a preview event was cut short due to, well, some very aggressive players. It’s very pretty though!
Lastly, the Blue Gate is a gorgeous, mountainous map with tons of rolling hills that makes for some excellent battles with other players. It’s easily the toughest map, however, with aggressive Arc presence. There are also some lovely, labyrinthine mazes of steel and concrete under the surface to get lost in.
Dam Battlegrounds is perhaps my favorite at the moment. As someone who prefers stealthy tactics, having bushes and trees to fall back to and hide in works well with my style. But I’d be lying if I said hunting down other players in the mountainous terrain of the Blue Gate didn’t give me a rush.
Which is worse, machines or other players?
The titular “Arc” come in a variety of forms. With threats ranging from the different drone types who survey the ground below for human threats, to smaller patrolling orbs and little spiders (or “Ticks” as the game calls them) that monitor the insides of abandoned buildings, you’ll have to keep your eyes peeled. And they’re not afraid to just insert themselves into a skirmish with players, so don’t be surprised if you get swarmed by some once they see or hear you trading shots.
There are also larger threats. The spider-like Leapers can, as the name implies, leap across incredible distances in their pursuit. There’s also the Queen, which often guards precious loot, particularly on the Dam Battlegrounds map.
These machines are resilient and aggressive in their desire to eliminate human threats, and you’ll have to place your shots well to destroy vulnerable parts and take them down.
Speaking of those human threats, you also have other players to contend with, who pose a challenge equal to their skills with the game and the quality of their gear. Kill a human and a flare launches up into the air, letting just about anyone nearby know that a fight just went down and there’s gear for the taking.
Without universal objectives for every player, extraction shooters can make for some truly unexpected encounters with other humans. And admittedly, it can feel a little unfair when someone kills you from an unexpected hiding place.
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Speaking with Kotaku, Arc Raiders’ design director Virgil Watkins said that the game is designed in such a way that “you should always have time to understand and react to what is happening to you.” With a longer time-to-kill (TTK) than most games in the genre, the game is designed to give you time to react. On combat with other players, Watkins said:
On even footing, the way TTK is balanced, if you’re full health and full shields, and so am I, and you attack me first, there’s a very solid chance that I will probably be able to back away, disengage, and do something to mitigate that situation. We really like when our fights have a lot of back and forth rather than just instantaneous [death].
Each map is also full of opportunities to hear other players nearby. Players make noticeable sounds not only while walking or running, but also when breaking into loot caches, tripping security cameras and metal detectors in abandoned interiors, scaring birds in the wild who take flight, and attracting attention from Arc. All of these can signal to you that another player is nearby, or give your presence away to someone else.
This all complicates any approach to stealthily moving through a map. But it also means that you can set up some solid ambush opportunities by keeping your ears open for nearby threats, especially with the generous hiding spots on the game’s maps.
Is Arc Raiders too hardcore?
I’ve long been a fan of the extraction shooter genre. It brings together a variety of different game systems in a unique way that makes for an unpredictable and irresistible experience. But I get that the genre is not everyone’s cup of tea, especially given how lethal and mean it can be. Losing all of your gear can be a painful setback that isn’t easy to bounce back from. Embark Studios is aware of this and has built Arc Raiders to be a more approachable take on an otherwise hardcore genre.
“Approachability was a key design tenet,” Watkins told me during our interview. Maintaining quest progress even after defeat, earning crafting supplies from Scrappy, and having multiple ways to extract means that it’s very doable to plan your way to victory at your own pace while also having a solid safety net to fall back on should you lose.
Defeat is a crushing experience in an extraction shooter. But as I’ve said before, those deep lows make for exhilarating highs when you come out alive from a tense battle or manage to get away with a sweet amount of loot.
Ahead of release, however, we’ve only gotten a taste of Arc Raiders’ maps, its arsenal, and its threats. How the full experience will evolve over time remains to be seen, but based on my time with the game during its technical previews, I’m eager to see what wild, unexpected moments will happen out there in post-apocalyptic Italy.
