ARC Raiders Explained

If you’ve been tempted by the hype, accessible price, and incessant calls to buy from your friends, you might be this close to purchasing ARC Raiders. Normally this would be easy, as you’re used to dealing with established franchises that tend to stick with one fairly rigid genre sequel after sequel. Now though, everyone has been talking about “ARC Raiders” for a while and you’ve never heard of it and you’re not sure what you’re in for. So, allow us to give you a rundown.

Assuming that ARC Raiders continues to stay popular, we expect some of the specifics here to change, but at time of writing, here’s the scoop:

It is an unspecified number of years in the future. Earth has been mostly ruined by an insidious robot / group of robots known collectively as “ARC”. You are one of the remaining humans, all of which have been forced underground. Here, safe from the perils above, a makeshift society has emerged with merchants and all the other jobs that conveniently fit into a game mechanic or a microtransaction context.

However, the good stuff is still upstairs on the surface and that’s where you come in. You and one or two of your friends. (ARC Raiders IS crossplay, just so you know). You must deploy onto the surface to scavenge for valuables. These can take the form of weapons, supplies, and other relics. All of which can be sold or used in future surface raids.

In order to get back to safety, you must find one of the functioning lifts in the area and defend it until it arrives.

"PvPvE” and “Extraction Shooter” are the two genres that ARC Raiders occupies, but these terms really don’t do a good job of explaining what you’ll be spending your time doing.

PvPvE stands for Player vs Player vs Environment. This means that you’ll not only get shot at by the AI controlled enemies, but by other players too. Those who haven’t played this sort of genre before should be aware that quickly being able to figure out if you’re being attacked by the game or another player is of crucial importance.

Extraction Shooters are a relatively new concept. Basically, you must drop into the map, achieve some or all of your objectives, and then escape within a certain time limit. This means that planning or improvising your route is vital. Additionally, due to the limited time, you’re going to need to pick and choose if you want to get into a firefight or not, which makes a pleasant change from most shooters where expedient murder of your fellow man is the name of the game.

Yes. Though you can entirely avoid them if you wish. The only use for microtransactions is to more easily acquire cosmetic items. However, there are still currencies at play.

At time of writing, ARC Raiders has three distinct currencies, and each one is earned and spent differently. Confusingly, some of these currencies have a degree of crossover, so let’s dig into it.

"Coins” are the most abundant and easily earned currency. You get these by playing the game normally. You are rewarded with a number of coins after each quest correlating to how many objectives you completed. You can gain additional Coins by selling the loot you brought back.

Coins are used to purchase things from the certain “Traders” in the home screen. Coins can be spent at the following Traders:

• Apollo (Grenades and Gadgets)
• Lance (Healing Items)
• Tian Wen (Guns and Ammo)

Cred is mostly used for cosmetics. It’s also the only currency that has a cap. At time of writing you can only hold a maximum of 800 Cred. Cred is earned by completing “feats” which are basically just small additional challenges like “Deal 110 damage to Raiders using Light Ammo Weapons”. Feats function as the “Dailies” of ARC Raiders as they change every 24 hours.

One use of Cred is in buying “Decks”. These are bundles containing a mixture of cosmetics and actual items. Each part of a Deck can be purchased individually. You can also use Cred with the trader Shani. She sells a seemingly random assortment of stuff.

Raider Tokens are the usual in-game currency. You can get Raider Tokens by buying them with real-world money, or in smaller amounts as part of Decks. Currently, you can by Raider Tokens in the following amounts:

• 500
• 1,150
• 2,400
• 6,250
• 13,000

As per usual with in-game currencies, larger purchases reduce the cost per token by an amount. It’s worth reiterating that these Raider Tokens are completely optional. You won’t be at any sort of disadvantage if you choose to abstain, you just won’t look as cool.