Basically a bunch of players are dropped into a game map, and normally your objective is to go around and collect as much loot as possible, then after some time or you’re ready to leave, you need to find the extraction point - this will save your loot and that run is over.
Some extraction shooters are PvE, and some are PvP, some are both. If you get killed with all your loot before you get to the extraction point you lose it all. It can be pretty stressful, and unbalanced if its PvP where some players play much more then you do therefore have better weapons etc
You go on a map with A.I enemies and real people. The goal is to extract components that you want, guns, valubles. You lose everything you found on that run if you don’t extract. Other people try the same thing and steal your stuff.
It’s a Battle Royale with a mix of PvE and PvE (usually) where you can find places to “extract” and leave with the weapons and gear you found, allowing you to bring those in to future matches, at the risk of losing everything you brought if you are killed.
It’s a game based around starting a round that loads you into a map, completing X objectives on that map, and then leaving the map alive to make progress, all while being swarmed by enemies. It’s a bit rouge-like in that way.
Not a big surprise. The genre is a niche, the hype has been building for years, and Arc Raiders looks like it scratches that itch many players want right now. Especially disillusioned Tarkov and Hunt Showdown players have high hopes for it. Anyone who‘s into multiplayer FPS knows The Finals is the freshest game in it‘s genre in over a decade so the devs have already proven they can make things at least interesting and fresh.
But again, the genre is a total niche with not much competition as of now. I think that‘s mostly why.
And yet the article says Extraction Shooter over and over without mentioning what an Extraction Shooter is. Is this shit intentional, or do most game journalists just start some time after grade school?
You can’t even talk about different games while playing certain ones, like what bullshit is that? I really feel like corporations are policing people’s lives nowadays, what with Nintendo being shitty to everyone, CoD not letting you talk about certain other games in-game, YouTube and other social media companies censoring any goddamn word that has even the slightest negative connotations (kill, suicide, pedophile, etc.}
Like the world just feels so infantilized and people can’t actually be people anymore, like we all need to be told what to do.
And in the end, I think it could all be explained with the rise of fascism literally everywhere right now. This world and existence fuckin sucks.
Those are a few different incentive systems in place. YouTube does what it does to be friendly to advertisers. Call of Duty does what it does because they’re too stupid to realize that censoring mention of your competitors actually draws more attention to them. But you’re here on Lemmy right now, presumably, because you were fed up with something on reddit and decided to move, and you can do the same with which video games you play.
But then we have the indie devs that constantly praise each other, include in-game references to their inspirations or blog about what blast they’re having while playing a competitors game.
I doubt they have a huge marketing budget. Perhaps they‘re using it in a clever way but I doubt Nexon bets everything on 0 here when The Finals only did ok. Extraction shooters is a niche that‘s starving for content. Somehow it gained a reputation for being everywhere when in reality there don‘t even exist 5 of them with a decent player size. The shooter genre is huge and people want something that isn‘t just a battle royale for once.
It may be that some games are dropping the ball and so players are looking to flock somewhere else.
For example, Helldivers 2 has some loud complainers who advertised both Battlefield 6 and Arc Raiders as potential alternates.
Word of mouth can do a lot of damage if the mouth is loud and persistent enough.
I’ve been looking into this recently because The Algorithm wanted me to (I don’t always do what The Algorithm wants, but sometimes it’s really fucking spot-on so maybe I’m just institutionalized) and I simply don’t see why this is really any different from anything else available.
Is it really that much better? Is it the same thing just with better execution? As we’ve seen time and again, popular doesn’t always mean good.
It’s the best extraction shooter I’ve played in the genre by like a country mile. Obviously we haven’t seen what the full economy looks like or endgame but there isn’t a single component that doesn’t outclass the competition in my opinion.
Like the immersion is top tier with the sounds, the graphics, the feedback, the movement. It feels really good.
The gameplay is also top notch and does things others in the genre don’t do. Namely:
variable game length that feels rewarding. I can do a 5-10 min run and get quick and dirty loot with a free load out or I can stay in the map for the full 45 and look for exactly what I want.
the items themselves are compelling game play pieces. Like the rare weapons are full on laser rifles and mini missile grenades - they’re cool and change how you play, not your power level. Like in Gray Zone Warfare nothing I get feels meaningful different or cool, other than the bullet spongy nature of higher level zones and even that’s not super noticeable. I had no reason to want to chase loot in that game.
the meta game is sick, probably comparable to Tarkov (although I didn’t play enough to actually compare this). Every match I feel like I’m working towards a goal of making the gear floor higher and gear ceiling easier to attain. Again, we need to see what the full game is like but collecting recipes, upgrading my workbenches, and collecting targeted materials feels good.
I’m positive I’ll get 3+ months of good fun out of this before I might start mixing other things back in. If the end game is really good I’ll be able to make it 5+ months with no content additions I think. The real question for any multiplayer game is can they add material at a fast enough pace to keep it compelling long term. We’ll have to see, but they have dozens of levers to pull on compared to a traditional fps or PvE game. New ARC, new bosses, new map mods, new events, new maps, new guns, new gadgets, new subsystems, new modes. Lot of different angles they can add to in parallel.
The release window for Arc Raiders could not be worse. Right between Battlefield 6 and Tarkov 1.0. Also a few weeks ago Arena Breakout Infinite released, which is also a very competent extraction shooter, that I had lots of fun with before Bf6.
This activity is a good sign for Arc Raiders, however it’s only a free playtest while the full release will cost 40€. How many of those players enjoying it now will actually cough up this much money for a game in a genre with many failed games before it? Dark and Darker was hugely popular during its last playtest and rapidly declined after the paid (Early Access) release.
I hope that they’re successful with Arc Raiders. I think the extraction genre is super interesting and needs more healthy choices that are not Tarkov (which has so many problems of its own).
I mean Fortnite‘s release window couldn‘t have been worse and it defined the entire genre going forward. In the end people will stick with what‘s best and it could be any of those three and more. I think there is something poetic about Embark going head to head with Battlefield 6 as if to prove themselves. Arc Raiders has good momentum. Now it needs to land properly and we‘ll see from there.
Yeah I had some fun with Day-Z and Player Unknown’s Battle Royale, but the repetitive rounds in those sorts of mods got boring to me pretty quickly. Especially the scavenging for gear each time, I just wanted to battle but it feels like work.
I have the same sort of issue with RTS games where you are in a race to build your base and units, I don’t enjoy speed harvesting and building.
The developer behind this game (Embark Studios) is trying to push the genre forward with new gamemodes and approaches to combat design.
Like the Finals has it’s own unique gamemode (Cashout) that doesn’t really exist anywhere else, and is a ton of fun with the amount of unique encounters you can have throughout the game (with the fully destructible environments with physics allowing you to completely up-end the map layout). There’s no “one answer” to solve a problem, and while mechanical aim and good listening for the enemy players will obviously help you, you’ll need to change your mindset from the shooter status quo because the objectives and combat can flow quite differently.
Arc Raiders is still in testing, but it’s designed to be an entirely 3rd person extraction shooter with an emphasis on sound design and careful maneuvering and movement (make too much noise, you attract a robot or a human’s attention. Move too slowly, you may be leaving loot behind or losing out on a good position like the high ground). It even features Uncharted style mantling and climbing, which I absolutely adore.
There is a lot of shooter slop these days, I agree. But these guys are definitely trying to change that.
You should check out Embark Studios' (ARC Raiders dev) other game, The Finals. Literally the most innovative FPS I've ever played, it completely reinvents the competitive shooter genre.
Can’t wait for the news about it inevitably dropping in players. Followed by news of permanent server shutdown within the next 2 years (I’m being extremely generous.)
To be fair, I told my friends that I thought The Finals would last only 7 months, but it stabilized around a little north of 10k concurrent players, which is probably fewer than the devs were hoping for but enough to keep it going.
Their handling of The Finals is a big reason I’m going to invest some time and money into Arc Raiders. It’s a really beautiful game with amazing sound design. I urge anyone who isn’t generally into extraction shooters to give it a shot this weekend, I don’t mind dying and losing shit as long as I’m making progress on missions and whatnot.
It’s been the only extraction shooter I’ve ever enjoyed. I’m 100% going to buy it on the 30th, baring they don’t pull a u-turn in gameplay last minute. But I have 0 worries with Embark at this point, as I agree they’ve done an *excellent * job handling The Finals. It’s proof GaaS can be great if done correctly.
God forbid people enjoying their little coop adventures. I will never understand this community’s hate boner for everything online. Just stick to your single player stuff and be happy. Why dig trenches for something that doesn‘t affect you?
Please note that the genre is PvEvP Extraction Looter Shooters. So some games, like Deep Rock Galactic and Helldivers 2, are missing from the list because they do not fit that category.
I have tried to play (ie, only played a few hours each, not like multiple days):
The Cycle Frontier
Escape from Tarkov
ARC Raiders (the closed beta in June 2023)
Dark and Darker
Delta Force Hazard Ops
Lost Light
Marauders
Hunt Showdown
Gray Zone Warfare
Incursion Red River
Games that I tried that don’t exactly fit the genre but are close enough I feel like I should include them:
Steel Hunters (the closed playtest in March 2023)
Sea of Thieves
SYNDUALITY: Echo of Ada
Dungeon Stalkers
Its not that I haven’t given the genre an honest go.
I hate that death means I lose not only the items I picked up, but also the items I brought into a match. The behaviour of players in this particular genre is almost always peak toxic. I am thankful that the genre exists, because it is a sponge taking some of the toxic people from other games. The people that derive fun and pleasure purely from ruining someone else’s game experience (like cheating, harassing, etc.) It is not a genre of game I enjoy, because some other players always ruin the fun.
Some games had a PvE mode, which was fine but the loot was limited to be basically useless. I don’t understand why they wouldn’t just have separated inventories, and perhaps allow transfers of items below a set gear level to keep the PvP economy balanced.
We used to get multiplayer games that weren’t dependent on some server that we don’t control, and now they’ve all turned into this. Then we read about all the layoffs that happened because this model is inherently unsustainable, and we have a giant gap in the medium’s history of games that we used to be able to play but now cannot because the business made a gamble on a type of game that sometimes becomes a money printer.
It‘s empty because you ignore a shit ton of studios including Embark themselves. Mass layoffs are an industry wide problem with no direct correlation to live service. There is a correlation between live service and AAA studios as well as AAA studios and layoffs though. That doesn‘t apply to Embark. So feel free to eat a shoe when they didn‘t fire 100 people by the end of the year.
Dude, calm down. My point was that there has been like 60 live service games like this that have shut down within the past 5-10 years. Did you see me say anything about the gameplay itself? No, I only mentioned the player base and servers.
Yeah, unless they move their focus towards more casual gameplay as opposed to the sweatfest that is PvP, the game will only alienate PvE players and be reduced to a swarm of toxic PvP-players.
I just hope that if “everything becomes an xbox” like they have stated they want to accomplish, that I’ll have access to my full library of titles via pc.
They’ve destroyed their brand through a million cuts over the past decade
It’s not possible to continue releasing ever-more powerful hardware every few years, while remaining affordable. Xbox Series X and S are still relatively expensive 5 years after release. Their price is apparently higher than before, possibly due to inflation.
Hopefully they consider doing a refresh of series X / S, with slightly more efficient hadware but similar computing power. Adding more compute has diminushing return on game quality anyway. And there’s probably room to fit more without changing storage/compute by optimizing games and software.
It’s probably a harder sell marketing wise to release new hardware with the same capacity. So they’d have to innovante another way.
It would be interesting if they did what they did with the windows MR VR headsets and let 3rd parties design devices based on a kind of template of sorts. So you could get an Acer Xbox and an Asus Xbox. Considering they are just small pc’s
This would be fine if Xbox Cloud Gaming were available on Switch and PlayStation.
Honestly the future is dumb streaming boxes. I don’t like it but there it is.
Sony is behind the curve. If Nintendo is their only competition, PlayStation 5 will see another price increase and PlayStation 6, if it happens, will price itself out of the market. Nintendo gamers don’t care.
Sony should have made their own GamePass years ago, and as a peace offering, Microsoft and Sony should have offered each other’s streaming service. That would extend hardware out another year or two as people have access to more games.
Disagree with everything you said. The future is not dumb streaming boxes. And game passes are a terrible model. NOBODY is excited about streaming a video game abs playing with shitty latency and compression.
So you also like it? You disagree with everything I said… including the part where I said I don’t like it? It sounds like you just want to be antagonistic. I’m not the future — being mean to me on social media won’t stop the future from happening. It just makes you slightly less of a good person.
The reason streaming boxes are the future in gaming is the same reason they are in movies and music. In movies and music, the common players don’t support physical media anymore — they’re too small. How do you get a tape, CD, or vinyl record into an iPhone? You stream it. Same with games. Even now, vs 20 years ago, physical releases are getting rarer and rarer. This generation, Xbox and PlayStation have digital-only models, and a lot of games are digital-only.
The compression is a trade-off and it exists in movie and music streaming as well. Latency will be mitigated by more servers.
And it’s actually already here. There are “Smart” TVs out there that play Xbox games. Via Cloud Gaming. I know guys out in the sticks who do cloud gaming. The myth that it’s only going to work in NYC, LA, and Chicago hasn’t ever been true. Seems like every town has servers now. And the fiber and cable running everywhere is good enough to solve most of the latency. Of course, there will always be latency… hell, I can’t catch fish in Animal Crossing if I’m using a wired controller, I have to take the damn Switch out of the dock and play handheld, but if I do that, I can catch the 5-star rarity fish every time, first try.
You don’t have to like it. I sure don’t. But, how’s refusing to accept things you don’t like working out for you? You wish us a good president yet, or do you actually like the one we have (in the US)? Your wishes in tech are about as effective… same as mine.
So you also like it? You disagree with everything I said… including the part where I said I don’t like it? It sounds like you just want to be antagonistic.
If you’re deliberately misinterpreting what they said like that, you’re the one being antagonistic.
I’m right there with you on the Steam Deck! Its still sad to see and it gives me PTSD when Sega killed the Dreamcast early in its life and got into publishing 3rd party only. Having only 2 console makers in the space makes me fear for innovation and creativity. The silver lining this time around is PC and the success of indie games recently.
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