My Arc Raiders Experience

I haven't played computer games since I was 20 or less. That's almost 25 years ago. Games were special back then. Then what's happening with AI now felt like it was happening with gaming. With the introduction of mobile and free to play, games started to get really horrible and uncrafted.

Arc Raiders is something special. I'm a bit sad that the game is turning largely into a PvP game. I don't think PvP players even enjoy the game. They just go for killing others and I even heard popular streamers complain about dark maps because it's hard to fight and people use NVIDIA optimizations to reduce shadows. I wish they could just go play CS or other flat boring symmetric maps where they can be happy.

Arc Raiders has a special aesthetic. Since the start, their identity, trailers and gameplay have had a deeper and richer visual style that is not common in recent games. The maps with different time and weather conditions are so rich and beautiful and with a stunning sound design it is a truly immersive experience.

Unfortunately I only played solo because I'm afraid going with teams and going into PvP will destroy my peaceful aggressive levels and then going back solo I will be stuck with PvP. And that is a shame because playing with friends is the most fun experience you can have with computer games.

I hope they introduce some kind of PvE only mechanics that could even be reserved for solo or both. That would be amazing. But it's a truly impressive game and the fact it made me buy a very expensive gaming PC with a 5090 shows the impact and how amazing I feel about this game experience.

There is also a very unfortunate toxicity in the game that represents human society. This could even be a super interesting case of study. Good versus evil and so on. And you can see the balance where people are clearly more aggressive, hateful and mean than the kind friendly folks.

I'm not sure how long I will play. I'm playing less and less since the game is becoming harder and as a casual player it's becoming hard to reach some goals. But Arc Raiders truly feels like an exception like in movies where everything is becoming tasteless and mundane and curated beautifully crafted experiences are a thing of the past.