Xbox Series X

ARC Raiders

ARC Raiders is a 2025 multiplayer third-person extraction shooter developed and published by Embark Studios for the platforms PlayStation 5, Windows and Xbox Series X/S, built on the game engine Unreal Engine 5. It can be played solo, or in teams of two or three.

Shooter

Time to beat: about 46.6 hours

Overview

ARC Raiders is a 2025 multiplayer extraction shooter developed and published by Embark Studios. It was released on October 30, 2025 for the platforms PlayStation 5, Windows and Xbox Series X/S, built on the game engine Unreal Engine 5. It can be played solo, or in teams of two or three.

The game has received generally favorable reviews from critics, and it was awarded Best Multiplayer Game at The Game Awards 2025 and Online Game of the Year at the 29th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards.

ARC Raiders is an extraction shooter played from a third-person perspective. Players leave the underground base (named Speranza) and search for items on the planet's surface for up to 30 minutes, some map conditions extend this to 40 minutes e.g. Hidden Bunker and Locked Gate. During the raid they will encounter hostile NPC robots (known as "ARC"), along with other human players. When a player is killed, they will lose any equipment and materials they have collected, except loot stored in a safe pocket, and return to base. Players can escape via extraction elevators, metro stations and air shafts or use raider hatches (safer extraction points that require keys to be opened) to return to base when they are done collecting loot.

ARC Raiders takes place on Earth in the year 2180. Decades earlier, hostile machines of unknown origin, called "ARC" after the telltale shape of their radar signatures, descended from outer space and began attacking humanity. After years of warfare, surviving humans were forced underground to avoid extermination, using the surface to collect resources that can be sold, dismantled or used to craft gear. One human safe haven is Toledo, a makeshift subterranean city that consists of a network of autonomous communities or "contradas" located beneath a region known as the Rust Belt in post-apocalyptic Italy (although the game's world map is based upon real-life Tenerife). The player is a "raider" from Speranza, one of Toledo's contradas.

ARC Raiders is developed by The Finals developer Embark Studios. It is produced by Aleksander Grøndal. Nexon, Embark Studios' parent company, performed market analysis for Steam prior to release and determined policies for how to maintain the userbase.

ARC Raiders received "generally favorable" reviews on review aggregator website Metacritic. Review aggregator OpenCritic reported that 92% of critics recommend the game.