I quit playing ARC Raiders for a couple of reasons. The two big ones being I did not want to support their use of AI voices and I was sick of getting shot in the back and losing all my shit. My eldest son Gabe loves the game and never stopped playing. He told me about how they replaced their AI voice work with human actors and that they were testing a new PvE mode. He asked if I wanted to try a few rounds with him and since I am at all times desperately trying to avoid a “Cat’s in the Cradle” situation I said yes.
He took me to a new map that came out after I quit playing and as soon as I loaded in my stomach tightened up. My immediate physical reaction to being back in an ARC Raiders map was stress. Then almost as fast, I remembered we were playing PvE and all that tension disappeared. We strolled into the main part of town and found it full of people looting and just hanging out. Gabe gave me a sort of maraca and he pulled out a guitar. We walked around playing music and chatting with folks. A guy came up and told us he was a streamer who could only gain items if they were gifted to him by other players. I gave him everything in my inventory. He thanked us profusely and as he ran off I heard “Holy shit chat those guys were so cool!”
Gabe wanted to show me an interesting phenomenon that happens in PvE. He has been playing consistently since launch and so has all kinds of amazing gear. It was trivial for him to take down one of the massive walking ARCs that used to mean instant death to me. Before we could even get to the corpse it was covered with looters. They ran from all angles jumping out of windows and off of roofs to get to the wreck. As I opened the first compartment I saw all the items vanish right before my eyes. Gabe laughed and said I wasn’t going to get anything. He explained that people listen and wait for someone to take down a large Arc and then hit it like locusts. I was frustrated at first but the truth is I didn’t need any of that shit. I had already decided I was not going to come back to the game. These poor souls stuck here in this wasteland obviously needed these wires and rare scraps more than I did.
Eventually I found the stress of trying to avoid being murdered and stripped of all my loot, not especialy fun. I don’t think that means it is a bad game though or that it should change because I also think that tension is what makes the game great for those who can tolerate it. I love the setting they have built and I thought what I wanted was PvE but in my mind what that means is a game like Destiny. Designing and implementing compelling singleplayer or co-op PvE content is time consuming and expensive. I don’t think it is as simple as making it so that you can’t deal damage to other Raiders which is essentially what we have here minus a few other minor tweaks. I also think the developers knew this already and that is why they built the game they did. It is true they have technically delivered a “PvE” experience but just like in PvP, other people are still the real content in ARC Raiders.
-Gabe Out
