Recent reviews by qqrebu

Game has some foundational issues that I think stem from trying to stick to the idea of being an "extraction shooter" so closely that it's reductive and encourages "extracting for the sake of extracting" (sounds stupid but bear with it).

Is it fun to extract? Yes.
Is it fun to not extract? Stupid question but no.
Now we can work our way back along the timeline of a raid.

Is it fun to loot? Arguably not since ARC Raiders is the extraction shooter with the least amount of ways to gain power over the course of a match compared to competitors in the genre. Looting is mostly for survival utility or necessities for things that exist outside of an actual match. One of the main design choices causing this is the inability to swap augments in-raid. Your choice of augment going into raid is the largest deciding factor of what you'll be doing for the next 5-30 minutes. This isn't to say there aren't any upsides to such a design (simplifying gearing between raids being a major benefit) but it compounds. Let's evaluate the other methods of gaining power in-raid. Obtaining more heals/util is limited by quickslots determined by your augment. Obtaining shields is limited by compatibility determined by your augment. Obtaining guns is the only other substantial power gain but the actually useful guns will likely be the upgraded and modded ones off another player's corpse. This is also compounded by the fact that guns only take 1 slot so the only limiting factors that stop all the guns being scooped up by one player/team are the fact that guns are heavy and can't be put in your bum. To reiterate, this is not to say that the design is bad, only that it limits the reasons for you to change your strategy over the course of up to 30 minutes. To at least partially compensate for this, the design of extracts that expire by time and encourage extractions in waves is genuinely innovative.

By working further back along the timeline of a raid, we can ask the following.
Is combat fun? Yes. Here's the follow up.
Is combat rewarding? See above about looting.

We can go even further back in the timeline and ask the following.
Is navigation fun? Yes, very much so. What I'm about to say isn't a critique but rather to demonstrate the limits of a design decision. Compared to having a first person perspective, third person perspectives suffer disproportionately more from having cluttered environments, extremely narrow spaces and extremely vertical structures. These are hard limits on the kind of map design choices they can make. Especially since this is a game featuring third person shooting and pvp. The camera behavior must be consistent to avoid an endless stream of complaints about unfair third person corner peeking and other one way vision obstruction. This is more of a personal observation but I don't think having more maps will be enough to satisfy people asking for more content in this game specifically. There will likely need to be more unique map specific mechanics rather than puzzles and map events alone.

I think that extraction shooters at the moment are about glorified checklist speedruns. It's not that they aren't fun for what they are but having a bigger or smaller checklist likely doesn't constitute a qualitative change or indicate innovation in the genre. I do think ARC Raiders was designed for a smaller checklist for better or worse.

Side note: Local voip is a genuinely impactful feature in ARC Raiders. Not that it's a feature unique to the game but because the pve content is much more of a threat compared to others in the genre. PvPing when arc are around is generally a lose-lose situation and so voip has a proportionally larger impact on how the game plays compared to others. Not saying that everybody should get along but being able to negotiate a genuine threat affects how people play much more than firing off a couple slurs.

Why use anything other than pointman when nobody can fight back against aimpunch at 10 hits a second.

when you watch an anime for 2 episodes and then the nukes drop while the third episode airs

cant stop killing friends on purpose

like letting a rabid dog chew on my benis as well as my fond memories of combat arms

ew anime
disgusting

not even good enough to make memes about

call me Big Medic

ricers EVERYWHERE

get sum real taste in cars u ♥♥♥♥♥ smh

gameplay is p cool
ubisoft business strategy is not p cool


but seriously, if you can look past the layers and layers of ubisoft ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ then you'll definitely find one of the very few satisfying TPS experiences on steam