Arc Raiders! It’s an extraction shooter! A fact that will leave many with the question, “is this the one that’ll push the genre to the mainstream?” Personally I haven’t the foggiest, and I don’t have a horse in that race either. That kind of nonsense matters more to shareholders than it does to little old me. Still, we’ve not got a huge amount of time to wait to find out if Arc Raiders is the one to make extraction shooters big, as during Geoff’s Livestream of Questionable Quality and Orbs, it got a release date.
That date is October 30th, a little over four months away. Just in time for Halloween, too, which isn’t at all thematically appropriate or relevant, but, it’s a holiday? Sort of? Yeah, let’s go with that. The shooter held a technical test last month to see if the thing actually works, and according to a press release, executive producer Aleksander Grøndal said it was the “best rehearsal we could get.”
Grøndal explained that there are the usual things developer Embark Studios have to do ahead of launch like bugs, polish, and performance improvements. But there’s also more gameplay oriented things like balance and the player economy to work on. Notably, he also said that they’re working on “an even better onboarding experience for players who come in new to this genre.” Quite clearly, Embark understand that they have some work to do to get people to stick with their extraction shooter.
For those not yet on the uptake with Arc Raiders, you’ll be playing as one of those titular raiders in an alternate future of earth overrun by evil robots (the titular Arc). You’ll need to scavenge what’s left of the surface world to build up your home underground, either working with others, or facing off against them, depending on how co-operative you’re feeling. Good looking vibes so far, but the proof will be in the pud.