r/videogames • • Aug 19 '26

Image / Video What game is this for you?

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1.9k

u/travnigma Aug 19 '26

Arc Raiders

986

u/Many-Cartographer278 Aug 19 '26

All extraction shooters. When you succeed by not playing its a dumb shit gameplay loop

648

u/Roshi_IsHere Aug 19 '26

That's how I feel about battle royales. Best way to win is to camp. At least in extraction shooters I can be rewarded for survival and carry progress across raids.

219

u/Many-Cartographer278 Aug 19 '26

Battle royales suck so damn bad and are an absolute plague on the shooter genre.

Its a damn miracle that bf6 is so fun. If they abandoned the shit ass br element it could be even better.

51

u/Zer0DotFive Aug 19 '26

You would think they learned from Firestorm but no 

7

u/TheOneTrueWalmart Aug 19 '26

Honestly firestorm was the best BR available at the time for anyone over 9yo. The problem was they didn’t make it free to play. Everyone that bought the game just wanted to play BF. It was a seperate development team working on the BR and because nobody played they scrapped it.

If they had made it free to play they could have sold twice as many copies of the full game.

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u/Sanc7 Aug 19 '26

Firestorm was awesome tho

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u/Cuboidhamson Aug 19 '26

BF's curse since it started going sour(IMHO, around bf3-bf4) is trying to be CoD and I know I'm not alone in thinking that

3

u/Beautiful-Musk-Ox Aug 19 '26

it's just another investment for c-suite people. battlefield hasn't been made as a video game for years now, it's now a profit making machine and literally all of their actions are to those ends. that's why the game is shit and it's impossible to make it better at this point

2

u/Commercial_Ad97 Aug 20 '26

I disagree because despite all the disagreements on gameplay, BF1 and BFV had so much character, like the animations, the lighting, sound, maps, and game modes? Man, they all made it feel so unique and cinematic to play. Getting knocked on your ass mid firefight with a guy (who also got knocked down) by a V2 rocket that didn't kill you as the building in front of you it hits crumbles to bits is so fucking cool. I miss it.

3

u/Beautiful-Musk-Ox Aug 20 '26

that's fair. 2042 was released 5 years ago so i'm still technically correct

3

u/Commercial_Ad97 Aug 20 '26

Holy shit really? Fuck me.

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u/Grimdek Aug 19 '26

Spawn die yay

7

u/Many-Cartographer278 Aug 19 '26

Such a bad experience playing with friends too.

Oh somebody died, sit tight and we can play again together in 20 minutes.

2

u/Grimdek Aug 19 '26

Bf6 is spawn die breh

2

u/Many-Cartographer278 Aug 19 '26

Anybody with this criticism is damaged by cod. Nobody is making you sprint spastically into the battle and die. Its ok to slow down.

You dont and then you blame the game.

I have played battlefield since bf1942. I have played call of duty since it came out. I really hate how call of duty plays these days. Its spastic lunacy. Bf6 just isn't even close to the same.

You will die a lot if you sprint around like crazy though because why wouldnt you lol.

3

u/CookedAccountant Aug 19 '26

Most of the maps are just too small and everything is a constant meat grinder. Would much rather play Squad or HLL

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u/mattr1986 Aug 19 '26

Hey now!

Tetris 99 is my most played game of the last decade and I don’t regret a second of it!

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u/L0CAHA Aug 19 '26

You can't camp in most of them because the ring forces you to move.

5

u/Roach_Coach_Bangbus Aug 19 '26

And the smaller the group gets the more stacked everyone's loadout gets. If you avoid all action your loadout will be junk and you eventually get smoked.

30

u/NarrowElm8253 Aug 19 '26

My friends and I enjoy battle royales bc it feels good to go against other players and have a challenge in our games, then we chill out with Minecraft or something, I dont know anyone who plays fortnite or warzone to really just "win" it's just an easy way for us to hang out while doing something stimulating

8

u/DraconicGuacamole Aug 19 '26

This is why I play The Finals. Great teamwork is incentivized, constant head to head with other teams, but little of the waiting/camping of battle royales

2

u/NarrowElm8253 Aug 19 '26

Ohh I totally get what your saying, some times the games really do just get slow and then your left in like a weird slog for a little while and then gets boring

3

u/DraconicGuacamole Aug 20 '26

Yeah I went back and played a game of apex, and I ended up waiting until like 10th until getting into an encounter, and the encounter ended so quickly that I didn’t get a chance to warm up and I was anxious from waiting. Battle royales just not for me anymore. The Finals forever

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u/InternationalHat5401 Aug 20 '26

The finals is hella fun

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u/marineman43 Aug 19 '26

Hang out while doing something stimulating is the perfect way to phrase it. When I wanna just catch up with my siblings and shoot the shit, we boot up Fortnite haha

2

u/wimpymist Aug 19 '26

Back in the day when I played mostly competitive shooters it was mostly a way to hangout with friends. Once my gaming group got too busy for games and we stopped playing together I never really played multiplayer games anymore. It wasn't the game it was the friends.

2

u/Inb4myanus Aug 20 '26

Pubg while goofing off and all three of us riding bycicles ringing the bells will never get old.

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u/Careless-Weather8877 Aug 19 '26

The point is a battle royale isn’t you can’t camp. I guess you can drop in the middle then jerk off but then eventually you have to move. By then everyone else is more stacked then you though.

4

u/InterestedNerd Aug 19 '26

That’s why imo Apex is the only battle royal worth playing atm, because it rewards you for being aggressive so much that camping makes it almost impossible to win

4

u/SmoothDiscussion7763 Aug 19 '26

the change to make everyone have EVO shields was the best change they ever made lol

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u/FxckFxntxnyl Aug 20 '26

The one and only match of Fortnite I have ever played, I camped and won. Didn’t click and never opened the game again.

3

u/Freakk_I Aug 19 '26

I have tried quite many extraction shooters but Helldivers 2 was the last straw for me. After that I have avoided all of them. Oh and I remember that at the time of Helldivers 2 release the community was circlejerking over it 24/7. It was cringe.

2

u/Roshi_IsHere Aug 19 '26

I didn't really like Helldivers that much. I played a ton of escape from tarkov when it was still good, The Hunt Showdown, and Cycle Frontier were some of my favorites. Even the COD DMZ mode was actually okay despite it being a watered down extraction game. Unfortuntely I think the only polished experience for it out there is probably Helldivers and Hunt.... but that comes at the cost of loss of excitement for surviving. In Hunt or Helldivers I can just die 300 times in a row and it doesn't matter. However in Tarkov / Cycle similar extraction games surviving was huge for the account. Really high high's and really low low's that can't really be replicated in other games.

6

u/MadToxicRescuer Aug 19 '26

Id give you £200 if you can camp against me on Fortnite fr

2

u/UsedToHaveATail Aug 19 '26

Yeah people complaining about camping in battle royals sound ridiculous to me , there's all these people , we all get one life , Im not at a beast at these shooting games but if I can survive until the end at least, then I'm happy enough but I'd rather play battlefield.

2

u/BlueberryWasps Aug 19 '26

best way to win a battle royale is to not care about dying, play enough that you understand the gameplay loop and how to get kills, then get lucky with some starting items on a run and kill a bunch to get the best gear, hunting the under-equipped campers down until you win.

the biggest hurdle is the initial fear you have of dying, and equating dying with losing. it’s more about seeing everything there is to see and getting as far as you can each time. at least a battle royale wipes the slate clean so your failures don’t compound on each other

2

u/ShellShoqq Aug 19 '26

“Best way to win is to camp”

My friends and I actively and aggressively hunt for anyone we can find and win often.

Fortnite is nowhere near our main game but we pick it up from time to time.

2

u/Ronin-s_Spirit Aug 19 '26

Have you tried The Cyle? Camping in one spot there is usually terrible for the leaderboard.

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u/PackAromatic2181 Aug 19 '26

Project Zombie, my friends left me alone for years playing that game, and without play any games that i like, for playing with ma friends i try the game month a go, the worst crafting that i touch on a game, and like in real life i die all the time cause y didn’t know how to clean glasses of my arm
Great game, horrible crafting, but not for me

1

u/dReDone Aug 19 '26

I mean, winning by camping sucks though. The reason people like battle royales is for the dream of racking up a high kill count and going out as the top dog. People who really hate extraction shooters are just bad at video games where they need to actually outplay humans who don't have mechanics they can abuse. Small disclaimer that I'm not saying they are bad at all video games, the sentence continues after that with an additional qualifier.

1

u/time2when Aug 19 '26

I really like kill confirmed modes. At least it forces people to move in order to score.

1

u/Chwenton Aug 19 '26

See I used to enjoy BRs because camping and playing smart was feasible up until around 2020 where everyone became an absolute demon in their respective games.

1

u/spark8000 Aug 19 '26

You carry progress until they do a wipe. Thats why I can’t get into them, feels like a lazy way to manage an economy

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u/Cherry_BaBomb Aug 19 '26

I like Apex's competitive system, which encourages you to get in fights, and is a necessity at higher tiers

1

u/Kimchi_man91 Aug 19 '26

When is the last time you played a Battle Royale? PUBG in 2018? A lot of them don’t boil down to just camping. Try camping in Apex and you’ll get laughed at

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u/Radiant_Still420 Aug 19 '26

Best way to win definetly is not to camp if you camp ur gonna die.

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u/Radiant_Still420 Aug 19 '26

You obviously don't play them lmao. Can't really talk shit about something you haven't really played😭😭

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u/Alexander_Smoliyan Aug 19 '26

So that's the point, literally...to survive by any means necessary.

1

u/ByrnToast8800 Aug 19 '26

I like battle royales cause most of the time my friends and I just play like psychopaths and pick don’t even try getting first, when we do play cautiously it feels like a stealth mission in enemy territory, it’s not for everyone but I enjoy it.

1

u/wettowelette04 Aug 19 '26

The only difference between a extraction shooter and a battle Royales is you can extract and keep your gear but other then that it’s the same thing drop in loot up get some kills load up next game

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u/itsFromTheSimpsons Aug 20 '26

Had a friend win a solo fortnite game without firing a shot because he hid in a bush and the second last player died in the storm

1

u/Leshie_Leshie Aug 20 '26

While i do not like Battle Royale or PvP games, I do play a battle royale game called Super Animal Royale and always play their other non-battle royale modes… and keep playing because it looks too cute >,<

2

u/Roshi_IsHere Aug 20 '26

That sounds fun. I'm mostly targeting the big BR's when I say I don't like the style. I'd play a goofy indie game a few times if it's fun or has a good gimmick.

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u/Jackie__Chandler Aug 20 '26

Not to white knight CoD because there is a LOT the franchise does wrong, but one of the things I really like about Warzone is the way that it pushes players to NOT camp and rewards them for it.

The contract system is amazing for that.

Do Scavengers for a nice money reward and guaranteed armor satchel, and do so at minimal risk of drawing attention from other teams, albeit at a greater expense of time compared to some other contracts.

Do Recons for a slightly lower money reward and quicker contract for guaranteed intel on the next circle location (which can stack if you do multiple), albeit at the risk of drawing opponents to your location as you try to “hold the point”.

Do Bounties for a greater money reward and info on an opponent’s location, albeit with the reward tied behind pushing an engagement with another player/team, sometimes at a location that’s advantageous to them.

Do Most Wanteds for a reverse Bounty that puts a target on your head for a very significant reward (large money reward + drop crate with guaranteed gas mask and perks + returning all your teammates to the fight), albeit at the expense of every player in the game knowing your X/Y coordinates until it expires (with the one saving grace being that the timer goes down any time you open a loot crate or kill another player).

And that’s not even all the contracts in the game (or “objectives” for that matter).

Combine that with how many potentially game swinging rewards you can get by spending in-game money at buy stations and you have a lot of reason to engage with the optional objectives the game offers, as well as try to kill other players to take their loot and money.

Warzone is far from perfect, but they’ve honestly done a lot to improve it over the years, including solving a lot of the issues with verticality being so strong by introducing things like grapples to quickly traverse to heights/Bunker Busters to push opponents out of power positions even if they’re beneath a roof/wall jumping to open new opportunites to make your way into certain structures in unexpected ways/etc.

Still, I’d love to see a new BR take a lot of what Warzone does right while taking lessons from what it’s done wrong, and take off because of it.

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u/ProjectSoup7383 Aug 21 '26

Ye but you aren rewarded by camping in BR games, you are actively cornering yourself and the longer the game goes on, the more it goes against your favor. Noobs camp in every genre of shooter, its just a fact.

1

u/GreenArrowCZE Aug 21 '26

Both benefit from camping

1

u/catsflatsandhats Aug 22 '26

Wait, when you are unskilled extraction shooters are actually horror games?

2

u/Roshi_IsHere Aug 22 '26

I've definitely had my volume too high before and almost jumped out of my chair when a grenade or gunfire went off. Also some bosses can scare the crap out of you if you didn't know they were in the raid before they pop up in your face.

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u/Willard-wood Aug 19 '26

I play only one of them
https://giphy.com/gifs/mdQyvGnl8KANBKDYzy
I hate the rest

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u/Many-Cartographer278 Aug 19 '26

I would not put that in the same category. Just like I wouldnt put helldivers 2 in that category.

Extraction shooters have a pvp element and when you die you lose the stuff you brought permanently. So you have to go get more stuff to bring more stuff to go get more stuff. No or very slow resl progress.

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u/Krashper116 Aug 19 '26

yea, DRG and Helldivers are horde shooters. just bcuz you "extract" at the end of a mission, does not mean they are extraction shooters.

also happy caek dae

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u/Blackbird8169 Aug 19 '26

Still have never had a better extraction experience from dark zones on the division

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u/xXInfXx Aug 19 '26

I think of them as Horde Shooters, much like Payday.

Go in, do a mission, get out with profit. It you lose, you lose nothing but your time.

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u/IrregularPackage Aug 19 '26

i don't think the pvp element is necessary. its the most common form, because we're still in that stage where every extraction shooter is literally just "tarkov, but...", but its not *necessary*.

there's an extraction "shooter" that just got its demo out called Expedition: Into Darkness, and it's going for "tarkov, but with swords and only PVE". still has multiplayer, but its only cooperative.

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u/Cute-Hand-1542 Aug 19 '26

Great game but not an extraction shooter. Have you tried the rogue like one?

3

u/Willard-wood Aug 19 '26

Rogue Core? Hell yeah, it also is the one rogue like enjoy, i just cant get into them :(

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u/Bobthemouse Aug 19 '26

In fairness Deep Rock is more for Left 4 Dead-like

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u/Xfishbobx Aug 19 '26

Did I hear a rock and stone?

Also, this is a coop extraction shooter, a lot more fun and a lot less annoying.

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u/Much-Gur233 Aug 19 '26

Yeah, I hear you.

3

u/Altruistic-Arm137 Aug 19 '26

That's actually the only extraction shooter that got me interested and really loved it.

But I hate gathering shit only for everything to get wiped and I'm not a PVP fan, the PVE is really cool.

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u/Bossdonglongs Aug 19 '26

I guess we're opposite sides of the same coin- the fact my shit could get taken at any moment was the only reason that shit mattered in the first place. 

Take away the threat of PvP and for me the game had nothing

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u/Altruistic-Arm137 Aug 19 '26

I'm just a big Monster Hunter Player, so hunting Arcs is the funniest.

Especially helping randoms.

I liked taking the sniper and looking for people in trouble and then shoot Arcs from a distance.

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u/Leshie_Leshie Aug 20 '26

I hated shooter games for a long time when I thought all shooters were competitive pvp, until Deep Rock Galactic became the 1st shooter game I’ve played. I’m a big fan of coop multiplayer and Minceraft.

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u/Xello_99 Aug 19 '26

Wdym succeed by not playing? The goal each round is pretty much to get good loot, either looting high value areas, killing the robot enemies or other players. For all three you have to play the game.

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u/thegolfernick Aug 19 '26

Yeah I don't understand what they're talking about at all

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u/Parking-Cold-5088 Aug 19 '26

Thank you! That's what I keep telling my friend who wants my to play ARC Raiders! What's the point?

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u/wtfVlad Aug 19 '26

Go in > loot for 15 minutes > die or extract > repeat. Not a fun gameplay loop imo.

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u/radilee21 Aug 19 '26

I've never really understood this take. You don't succeed by hoarding wealth and having the biggest vault, you succeed by doing the story and hitting whatever progression goals the game sets out for you (Kappa/Expeditions/VIP).

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u/FreshStar7 Aug 19 '26

Succeed by not playing? Thats just not true at all. I’m assuming you’re just over exaggerating, but I still have no clue what you’re talking about. You have to play the game in extraction shooters to progress.

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u/cyberpunch83 Aug 20 '26

Extraction shooters have always given me the impression someone played Borderlands but wanted to make their own version that was significantly worse by combining roguelite elements.

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u/Paladyn183 Aug 19 '26

I feel this on 99% of extraction shooters. Except helldivers 2 which is basically an extraction shooter lite

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u/Patient-Click9662 Aug 19 '26

Brother that game is not an extraction shooter

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u/TeaTimeKoshii Aug 19 '26

Is that really fair? It’s a genre people like for sure but…

I would argue the genre is too popular for reasons that people are misled by like social enjoyment or whacky circumstances. I’ve yet to see a game driven by prox chat not have unhinged antisocial behavior lol.

I think by their nature extraction shooters are for people who enjoy high stakes gameplay and masochism lol. There’s a reason why everyone plays when there is a wipe in Tarkov and it’s because the climb and loot aggregation loop is fun. The problem is how do you design a satisfying end game for the have’s and one that the have nots will want?

BR games have a micro version of this every match. Get loot, accumulate resources, use them to win or have scrappy from behind victories.

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u/XXXandVII Aug 19 '26

Not completely Arc Raiders related, but battle royals often suffer from the same problem.

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u/Dede_42 Aug 19 '26

Happy cake day!

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u/Hungry-Assignment845 Aug 19 '26

PVE ones (incursion red river) are okaish thu.

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u/Pudgedog Aug 19 '26

What do you mean by not playing?

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u/braybobagins Aug 19 '26

I feel like extraction shooters and battle royale games are engineered for the unemployed

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u/vladdeh_boiii Aug 19 '26

Extraction shooters are fun when it's PvE and co-op.

Like SPT's multi-player mod.

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u/YourPhrenologist Aug 19 '26

Extraction shooters make everyone actually play Battle Royale. Battle Royales make everyone sit and do nothing. Will therefore sitting and doing nothing make everyone play extraction shooters?

We will find out.

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u/TheJeeeBo Aug 19 '26

You succeed by having fun in the moment because the stakes are higher, which makes the fights more intense. The losses are bigger and the wins are bigger.

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u/avrgwarthunderplayer Aug 19 '26

A gameplay loop you dislike would be a better description, its still enjoyed by many.

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u/librast Aug 19 '26

Does helldivers 2 counts as extraction shooter?

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u/ACDC-1FAN Aug 19 '26

I mean if that’s how you wanna play them I guess. My friends and I play Hunt Showdown by wiping the whole server FIRST.

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u/NuclearForce09 Aug 19 '26

Thats just not right, its ok to not like a gameplay loop, but its not that if you dont like it, is shit. Me and so much people loved it, so its objectively not shit.

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u/wimpami Aug 19 '26

Hunt Showdown is an amazing extraction shooter that I really encourage a lot of people to try. It has very little farming (which is something I dislike) and losing your equipment is not as punishing.

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u/DiarrheaPope Aug 19 '26

A too don't like extraction shooters. Sand is pretty fun tho.

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u/TienSwitch Aug 19 '26

Disagreeing with you on the rationale. Knowing when to withdraw and hide isn’t “not playing” anymore than not going full Rambo in a stealth game isn’t “not playing”.

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u/HurricaneHuracan Aug 19 '26

Happy cake day!

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u/dabreezeknees Aug 19 '26

All PVP extraction shooters. Escape from duckov and zero sievert are the shit.

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u/Nuclearkillma Aug 19 '26

I absolutely agree, sitting in a corner is a shitty gameplay loop. Ans that is exactly why you don't sit in a corner, and actually play the game, that's the fun part

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u/Fightmilk87 Aug 19 '26

That's not true for all of them. Hunt: Showdown comes to mind.

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u/Kradgger Aug 19 '26

I have a love-hate relationship with Tarkov, but I do recognize that sanitizing the genre like Arc Raiders did takes most of the engagement from it.

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u/KvotheTheChandrin Aug 19 '26

Thats for battle royale not extraction shooters. The point of them is to fet good loot and you only get that by playing, looting and killing. You can extract with nothing but then its pointless to jump in a match if all you care about is extracting

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u/NixRegis Aug 19 '26

Have you ever played witch fire

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u/LOUDTV-- Aug 19 '26

I love extraction shooters but idk why a million people dead ass thought this game was gonna be something so revolutionary I knew 100% it was gonna lose all its players when people really understood its gameplay loop

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u/Biggbossesbutt Aug 19 '26

Id describe it like doing meth. Yeah you could avoid engaging with it, but the high you get from it is insane.

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u/The_Tooter_Snooter Aug 19 '26

Even Helldivers? 

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u/ADXII_2641 Aug 19 '26

Happy cake day

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u/ItsKaja Aug 19 '26

What about PvE extraction games like the new Gears and Helldivers 2, those fuck hard dude

Gears E-day genuinely has some of the most addicting extraction gameplay I’ve ever touched

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u/SentinelSon01 Aug 19 '26

Eh, I like Hunt: Showdown because it mitigates a lot of those issues. You killed the boss and extraction campers are doing their thing? We gave you 5 secs of wall hacks and a proximity sensor that doesn't give you direction. Hate the Apex "I revived my teammate 106 times this fight. Straight skill bro, fsfs," well Hunt has limited revives tied to how much health you're willing to risk.

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u/GorillaJackson Aug 19 '26

What does that even mean?? “Succeed by not playing” makes no sense lmao

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u/Thick_Common8612 Aug 19 '26

Genuine question, what is an extraction shooter compared to a battle royale? I've played a lot of BR but not extraction shooters

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u/EBeach2002 Aug 19 '26

I’m almost the same except I play Hunt: Showdown all the time. Maybe has to do with the lax economy of the game, which means I don’t have to worry about losing stuff.

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u/Yeetsformer Aug 19 '26

I love extraction shooters, BUT they are definitely not for everyone

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u/Braindead_Crow Aug 19 '26

Do you mean the campers who prey on people who actually fight the ARC?

or do you mean the players who choose to go full pacifist mode with each other?

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u/BerkinToSlan Aug 20 '26

Hunt: Showdown is great though, and I don't even like other extraction shooters. There's an active timer for the match, and a goal for every team to achieve so you either don't make it out alive or don't gain anything if you just do nothing. 

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u/dislikethatoneguy Aug 20 '26

Agreed. They're fun for a time then I get bored.

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u/opxdo Aug 20 '26

All these games seem so cool when I watch people stream it. But they are so hollow and empty at the end of the day.

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u/ZslayerG1O Aug 20 '26

The only extraction shooter that ive been playing is bo7 endgame because its easy enough to be enjoyable without having to deal with pvp and has a better gameplay loop than just show up, loot things, and leave

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u/LittleNinjaXYBA Aug 20 '26

Happy Cake Day! 🎂

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u/STRYKER3008 Aug 20 '26

Honestly I have a tinfoil theory that extract games were psy oped by big gaming cuz they looked at the success of battle royals but thought, how can we include more grind and false scarcity? Well what if instead of them unlocking things throughout playing that they will always have access to in the future, they can lose it all anytime they actually play with those items? Cha Ching! 🤑☂️💸💵💰haha

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u/Nervous_Committee205 Aug 20 '26

I have never really gotten into extraction shooters. What makes them so fun compared to regular shooters?

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u/etriusk Aug 20 '26

And that's why I play EFT PvE exclusively. If I don't have to worry about cheaters, campers, and sweats, the game is actually pretty fun

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u/DaddyDayDare Aug 21 '26

Brotha what are you talking about?

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u/Icy_Donkey_7588 Aug 22 '26

Deep Rock Galactic is the only extraction shooter I like. Probably because its PVE and not PVP.

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u/_richtea_ Aug 23 '26

Skill issue

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u/Apostleguts Aug 23 '26

Play no room in hell, it’s not a traditional extraction shooter in the sense it’s not PvP. It’s an 8 player PVE game where you have to do objectives and survive npc zombie hordes before doing your extract mission. Completely changed my perspective on what extraction shooters should be.

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u/simpletoniun Aug 23 '26

Witchfire is a much better extraction shooter.

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u/da_fishy Aug 19 '26

The world and lore behind arc raiders is so great, it’s such a fascinating concept and it ties into being an extraction shooter so well. The problem is that extraction shooters in general have such an unfulfilling gameplay loop. Like being an avid gamer my whole life, the fact that progression in any game sorta doesn’t mean anything, it feels like an active waste of time when your only goal is to have gear to make the thing you were already doing a little easier.

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u/Hunk4thSurvivor Aug 19 '26

Yeah i couldn't understand the appeal of Arc Raiders gameplay. It felt like i was just walking around collecting scraps and then getting killed randomly. I just didn't understand why was i supposed to care about what i was extracting or losing what i collected.

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u/FundamentalFailson Aug 19 '26

Maybe you already know this but for anyone else reading along: here’s a whole progression loop with arc raiders. Every item you gather can either be sold for credits or used to craft items. In order to craft items, you will have to level your benches using certain items found topside. You also find blueprints topside which allow you to craft better weapons (which can also be leveled, attachments, shields, backpacks, health measures. From there the game branches. You can either lean into big-arc hunting and get really great at soloing giant arc like the matriarch and harvester, or you can lean into PvP which is where being able to craft new gear and recycle other materials you’ve gathered into further kits really comes in handy. So why care about what you’re extracting/losing? Because that’s the only way you get the better gear so you’re the one doing the killing, be it arc or other players.

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u/Hunk4thSurvivor Aug 19 '26

From what i've played and can remember, i wanted to have a taste of the good stuff before i spent hours grinding scrap that i could lose at any moment before i cared about it.

I just feel like the loot should l've been more interesting....

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u/JuanDeChuj Aug 19 '26

That's why arc is a little different. instead of pure slaughterfest (like tarkov, marathon) you can socialise with people to kill something way bigger than you ever could. The pvpve aspect is what makes it interesting.

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u/shittyaltpornaccount Aug 19 '26

I mean I have had a few really surprising momments of socialization in tarkov, it happens more than you think. Got escorted to extract by friendly scavs when I was learning a new map and trying to do a quest.

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u/NapsterKnowHow Aug 19 '26

Too bad the pve bots are so boring to fight. At least the Marathon bots are a challenge.

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u/belle_enfant Aug 19 '26

I've had people be social 1 outta maybe ever6 20 runs. Definitely never made the game more interesting to me.

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u/Sermagnas3 Aug 19 '26

You can say this about like 90+% of video games. Most games are just one gameplay loop with some numerical progression to make it easier.

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u/NapsterKnowHow Aug 19 '26

Arc is just DayZ meets Metro but with robots instead of zombies/mutants lol. Marathon has far more interesting gameplay and lore.

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u/belle_enfant Aug 19 '26

I didn't even think it was great tbh, pretty generic lol

1

u/evanfinessin Aug 19 '26

I couldn’t get into Arc because of the aesthetic. Rusted browns and pipe guns that look like they are from the 70’s don’t look appealing to me

1

u/Cyber_Faustao Aug 20 '26

I disagree on the lore. It is drip fed so slowly and disjointedly from fetch quests that I genuinely think they might be better off as a seasoned full-motion-video explaining the lore rather than getting half a paragraph's worth of lore every other quest

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u/Lor- Aug 19 '26

Arc Raiders at release date was something magical. Me and my buddy were addicted and would play it a few hours each night doing the quests and teaming up with lobbies to kill big ARC. Once people were comfortable though it was just getting shot in the back of the head while engaging ARC.

Wish there was a similar game that was PVE oriented. We haven’t played since we got tired of the constant PVP. (Yes I know the game is PvPvE.. that’s why we stopped).

2

u/Brys_Beddict Aug 19 '26

That's every PvP game

2

u/Yurt_TheSilentQueef Aug 19 '26

So many PvP games are so fun at the start, but a couple months in when people know maps, best camping spots, best exploits, best strats etc etc it just gets boring. I enjoy the chaos/random bullshit at the start, and then get bored once metas become the norm

2

u/IanPlaysThePiano Aug 19 '26

So true. Same story here, would play it every night with my girlfriend. But it didn't take long for people to figure out that the safest play was extraction camping — not that I blame them — and for us, that killed the fun... That, and the community can be insufferable at times. SEA servers are also just downright mysogynistic and later on it just seemed like the devs were giving up on the game. We later started getting wacky, goofy call-of-duty-esque outfits that was just out of place (the kind of oddities they'd promised earlier to never add), uncalled-for balancing patches, and it felt like the dev team really lost grip of what made the game magical at launch.

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u/Lor- Aug 19 '26

Me and my buddy always brought a hatch key, cause we didn’t trust anyone. They were cheap and easy to get so we would just take turns bringing one each round. The few times we forgot one we were very careful with approaching an extract. Still ran into a few campers though.

We both quit playing shortly after the first expedition reset. The novelty had already worn thin and our last straw was a group bringing the cloaks to avoid ARC aggro and killing me and my friend while we were killing a Bastion. Never booted up again after that. The cosmetics always seemed to miss more often than not from what we saw while we were still active. I bought one outfit and never had any desire to pick anything else they put out.

1

u/Tmak254 Aug 19 '26

Not a shooter but there’s an extraction medieval fantasy game I’m enjoying at the moment called expedition into darkness. It’s just a demo on steam at the moment but it’s got great atmosphere and no PvP.

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u/Sweetpotatowest Aug 19 '26

Generation zero is pretty much arc raiders without PvP 

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u/Mirelurk_Prime Aug 19 '26

Agreed. Never grabbed me.

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u/Alexander_Smoliyan Aug 19 '26

I completely agree. Tarkov is better.

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u/Sanemi_i Aug 19 '26

I think you’re missing out, it’s very well done.

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u/CookieLuzSax Aug 19 '26

The sound design and idea is awesome.

The levels and missions get very repetitive, doesn't feel like there's much to do at all.

2

u/dyrannn Aug 19 '26

it’s very content dry and the one thing that’s supposed to keep it someone fresh (pvp) has been all but designed out of the game from a mixture of player bitching and embarks refusal to fix the hacks lol

Instead of having a dynamic raid every time you go in where player interactions shake up the formula, you either have players doing the same loot runs uncontested on the same maps over and over or you are unable to play the game because of hackers and ABMM, which the remaining players want and love, prevent you from being anywhere in the middle lol

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u/crizpy9119 Aug 19 '26

Yea I wanted to like it but found myself dragging myself to play with my buddy. I got very bored fast, not sure if it was worth the money to me tbh.

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u/bekov1375 Aug 19 '26

Arc Raiders is such a wasted opportunity forwhat could have been an amazing single player looter shooter...

8

u/Deftly_Flowing Aug 19 '26

This is actually an insane opinion.

1

u/RollingMeteors Aug 19 '26

Arc Raiders

I fell off after 2012~. Games just lost their fun for me. I was only really into FPS and RTS games and the last I played were quake 3 / UT series / Killing Floor and Starcraft II.

Just EDM for me these days directly from the back of the mixer my friends are playing out of.

1

u/EdgarAllanKenpo Aug 19 '26

Thats funny we are the complete opposite. I generally played multi-player games up until 2015 than realized I was just getting stressed and annoyed when I played, so I switch to my passion when I was younger which was RPGs/single player and now all I play are single player games and im enjoying every second of it. Plus my backlog is always like 5 games deel with new one coming out constantly so ill never be bored.

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u/RollingMeteors Aug 20 '26

Last single player ish I got into was sonic and mega man series. After I started computer gaming it was multiplayer only until I stopped playing games entirely.

1

u/Furry_Femboy_Account Aug 19 '26

Arc Raiders always makes me think of MTG Commander. It's like you're playing by house rules and expected to not try to win or you're being 'mean'. 

1

u/Numb_Sea Aug 19 '26

I hate extraction games but the world is so damn cool in arc raiders

1

u/puzzleShockTurtle Aug 19 '26

Arc Raiders was actually pretty sick, it was cool how the enemies were really dangerous and quite a few of them being pretty interesting or weird like the Leaper with the legs. I remember I got him trapped underground and took him down solo with shitty ahh gear. Or even the spider guys that can jump you in groups are cool

1

u/HerbertInTheWoods Aug 19 '26

It was the community that made it fun the first few months but now it’s only PvP sweats that play anymore

1

u/ReaperSound Aug 19 '26

Arc Raiders being my first extraction shooter was a LOT of fun for me. Getting the platinum trophy ended my run for it though. I had my fun, got my platinum, made a few friends along the way and have moved on to other games.

The journey being a few hundred hours was well worth it.

1

u/Pertolepe Aug 19 '26

Initially it was sick then it quickly felt like there wasn't much to do

1

u/True-Obligation-9471 Aug 19 '26

YES wasted money buying the game and it was just worse helldivers

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u/WindyCityRonin Aug 19 '26

FACTS. I remember when it was going to be PVE, then they changed it to PVPVE and I lost interest because it was going to bring over the sweats and Battle Royale players who just shoot on sight

1

u/AndyDS777 Aug 19 '26

Its fun as hell to just repeatedly drop in with free loadouts and piss around tho

1

u/WithFullForce Aug 19 '26

I got 40h out of it before I felt it was too grindy and stressful. Money well spent in my book but I wouldn't go back. I think there's beauty in accepting that however and not having a need to go apeshit like the guys with 2000h on Tarkov.

1

u/CactusSplash95 Aug 19 '26

Biggest waste of 40 bucks ever. Marathon hooked me like crack though

1

u/Shadowfox1992 Aug 19 '26

Absolutely a snooze fest. I am so mad I got this game day 1.

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u/KeesterFeester Aug 19 '26

Same. It is a well built game but I friggin hate the idea of extraction shooters. I just don't understand the point of the game if all you do is lose your stuff every single time you play it. It's even worse if you aren't one of the sweaty players. You just never get any where and your stuck using the free load outs the whole time.

1

u/specture4794 Aug 19 '26

All MP Shooters. Get boring after a few hrs. Give me a campaign

1

u/Inb4myanus Aug 20 '26

The gun play was a lot of fun before all the endless nerfs which killed it for me.

1

u/Haseo3 Aug 20 '26

Game was straight 🚮. No story mode, the gun accuracy was horrible I felt like a Storm Trooper. You couldn’t trust people, some machines were unbeatable and so much more

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u/FollowingFlat5798 Aug 21 '26

I hated arc raiders my friends took me on way to hard of missions and it was just misery everytime I don’t get how it’s supposed to be fun

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u/Moist-Razzmatazz-92 Aug 21 '26

This. Never understood why people enjoy these type of extraction games where you loose absolutely everything on death so you just end up hoarding any decent stuff.

1

u/Kees-Kontvlees Aug 21 '26

I bought it months ago. Still haven't played it.

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u/Mossieoak Aug 23 '26

This and Tarkov. Just not for me

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