Arc Raiders, the upcoming PVE co-op shooter from Embark Studios, will not be a PVE game anymore as the developers announce a change in direction.
The upcoming game will now be a PVPVE survival extraction shooter.
As the dev blog post states, Arc Raiders was delayed in favour of another game the team is developing, The Finals, as that team-based FPS with building destruction was ready to go. The added development time also allowed Embark to add PVP to Arc Raiders.
And the result of that is a pivot to extraction shooters. Popularised by Escape From Tarkov, extraction shooters, or survival extraction games, has you and your team scrounge for loot in a map filled with enemies and other teams of human players. It’s your call to engage or team up with fellow players, but the goal is to survive and extract the loot. Die and it’s gone.
Other games of this genre include The Division (where you can engage in this mode via the Dark Zone), Hunt Showdown and The Cycle: Frontier.
Given the low reception towards co-op shooters, co-op games with loot in general (see the reactions of fans on the Suicide Squad Kills The Justice League gameplay, and the reviews of Redfall), and extraction shooters are still on the rise, it makes sense that this genre pivot is done.
Not much is seen publicly about Arc Raiders- alpha tests are closed and under NDA with no major leaks being reported- so it’s perfectly safe to pivot as no expectations were set outside of the first reveal trailer.