Review
Escape from Tarkov
Unmatched depth and tension. A genuinely hostile business record. Go in with your eyes open.
No. 24 in The Noteworthy 50 · Extraction Shooter
ARC Raiders
The extraction shooter that finally made the genre approachable — and accidentally became the year's best game for talking to strangers.
The extraction shooter genre spent years being defined by Escape from Tarkov's philosophy: maximum punishment, maximum realism, maximum barrier to entry. ARC Raiders arrived in late 2025 with a different thesis — keep the tension, remove the cruelty — and it turned out that was what most people actually wanted.
The design that makes it special is proximity voice chat. Players speak to each other in the world, and because the machines roaming the surface are a shared threat, there is real reason to negotiate rather than shoot. The result is a game generating stories at a rate nothing else manages: temporary alliances, betrayals, players talking each other down over a contested extraction. It is emergent social design of the kind that usually only happens by accident.
Why it works mechanically
Loss is meaningful but survivable. Gear is craftable, the progression curve tolerates bad runs, and a wipe does not erase an evening. Compare Tarkov, where a poor raid can undo hours. Embark also brings serious technical craft — the audio design in particular is exceptional, and locating an ARC machine by sound alone is a genuine skill.
The uncertainty is the same one facing any young live game: whether the content pipeline sustains it. Eighteen months of strong support so far and a studio with a good record. As a place to spend forty dollars right now, it is one of the safest bets on this list.
What works
- Proximity voice chat produces genuinely unforgettable player interactions
- PvE machine threats give a reason to co-operate with players you should be shooting
- Superb audio design and readable, gorgeous environments
- Far more forgiving loss curve than its hardcore genre peers
What doesn't
- A premium price in a genre where the competition is free
- The learning curve is still steep for anyone new to extraction
- Long-term content cadence remains unproven
- Solo play is materially harder and lonelier than squad play
The Catch — what it will cost you
A straightforward premium purchase with a cosmetics store — no pay-to-win, no loot boxes. Embark's earlier game, The Finals, has kept that promise for years, which is reason for cautious optimism. The open question is content pipeline, not pricing.
Who it's for: Players intimidated by hardcore extraction shooters who still want their heart rate up.
If you like this
Review
The Finals
Mechanically the most inventive shooter of recent years, held back only by an audience that never got as large as it deserved.
Review
Helldivers 2
The best pure co-op shooter in years, and proof that a premium price and a fair battle pass can coexist.