In weeks dominated by Battlefield 6and with Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 arriving in a handful of days, no one expected another game multiplayer would have achieved so much success, to the point of displacing Electronic Arts’ shooter from first place in the Steam rankings. We’re talking about ARC Raidersa extraction shooter developed by the Swedes of Embark Studios, already known for The Finals. The title reached a peak of over 354 thousand users connected simultaneously and, according to the analysis of Gamalytichas already sold over 1.5 million copies on Valve’s platform alone, generating $57.8 million in revenue.
A decidedly remarkable result, and thanks to the numerous excellent qualities of the product that immediately catch the eye. To give some context, we are in aPost-apocalyptic Italydevastated like the rest of the world by the ARCs, machines that were supposed to protect humanity but are now hunting them. The survivors have taken refuge in an underground city, Hope. The brave few who dare to venture to the surface are called Raidersmen and women who risk everything to snatch what remains of the past from the ruins. They are not heroes, this is made clear after a few minutes of play, but adventurers who do not hesitate to turn their weapons against their peers if this means securing tempting loot.
As in every title belonging to this genre, in fact, players not only clash with AI-controlled enemies, the ARC robotics, but also against other users, in a structure known as PvPvE (Player vs. Player vs. Environment). Each shipment to the surface is loaded with voltage: in the silence of devastated landscapes, every sound echoes between the walls of abandoned buildings, every shot shatters the quiet, every container broken into by force makes such a racket that it makes you grit your teeth. Because ARCs are not passive, far from it. They react to every sound, patrol, explore, call for reinforcements. And other players might hear the noises and decide to investigate, perhaps to lend a hand to a teammate Raiders cornered by the robots, or perhaps to put a bullet in his back and recover the loot.
The title, in short, all the qualities to establish yourself in the panorama of extraction shooterand it can be approached easily enough to attract even those who have not spent hours and hours on titans of the genre like Escape from Tarkov.
Furthermore, the development team has already released the roadmap of the contents that it intends to release by the end of the year and has promised ten-year support, a sign of confidence in the project and the desire to continue to feed hungry players with new weapons, maps and missions, making the exploration of Southern Calabretta.