Can ARC Raiders Rival Escape from Tarkov in 2025?

At the time of writing, ARC Raiders just finished their second public playtest, garnering heaps of praise from the most popular content creators.

The game offers something unique to the extraction shooter genre, but can it rival Escape from Tarkov, the biggest player in the genre? After playing a little over 15 hours of the playtest and having over 2,000+ hours in Escape from Tarkov, here are my thoughts on this new and polarizing extraction shooter.

ARC Raiders Already Looks More Polished Than Other Extraction Shooters

ARC Raiders is a stunning open-world third-person looter-shooter extraction game. What a mouthful. The game is set in an apocalyptic world where mysterious machines of ARC threaten life on the surface world. The people are forced to survive below; those willing to go above to gather resources and finish tasks are known as Raiders.

The premise is enticing enough to immerse the players in its story, but its most significant strength is the core gameplay loop. You’ll progress your character by finishing tasks, leveling up, and getting skill points. Anything you extract from the surface area is used to complete tasks, craft items, or build your workbenches.

As you progress, games get harder, especially in other areas or maps. You’ll be forced to run them to find rarer items, but you’ll also face other players looking for the same resources. You can be a pacifist and avoid contact, or take them on and get their valuable loot or loadout. That is the overall gameplay loop of ARC Raiders.

Surprisingly, it already has a fair amount of depth. There are so many things to learn, explore, and master. Even more surprising is that it looks pretty polished. The gunplay and movements are smooth. The open world is vibrant and already feels ready for release.

So, how successful will ARC Raiders be as it prepares for launch? While I am particularly fond of comparing new games to old ones, the comparison is mostly to describe the similarities and dissect the differences to determine whether they are good or not, not to say one game is better than the other.

The most comparable game to ARC Raiders is Escape from Tarkov, the current king of the extraction shooter genre. While they look nothing alike, there are more similarities than first meets the eye.

Is ARC Raiders Even Comparable to Escape from Tarkov?

While those who don’t play Escape from Tarkov might scoff at the comparison, the two games’ progression systems are eerily similar.

You start the game being introduced to a few NPCs or traders who offer quests or tasks for you to complete. You’ll then finish those quests to jumpstart your progression. They’ll give you experience points to level up fast, but they also give you more item rewards and unlocks as you go deeper.

While you are playing, you also have a secure item container, which ensures that everything you put inside will not be lost upon death. There are several loot containers, all with varying loot.

However, the two most significant differences between the games are that ARC Raiders is a third-person shooter and the UI.

Escape from Tarkov prides itself on being a hardcore tactical shooter, where there’s no crosshair, UIs, or anything to help you play the game.

ARC Raiders shows you almost everything, from extraction points to abundant loot in specific areas. Any player can easily pick up the game and go through the objectives without having a mandatory map or guide on another device or screen.

It is just way easier to play than Escape from Tarkov. However, to Escape from Tarkov’s credit, its complexity draws its core audience to it every single time.

If you are a fan of military extraction shooters specifically, ARC Raiders might not be for you. But if you love extraction shooters in general, ARC Raiders might have found something more polarizing in the genre by leaning more to its “PvE” in the PvPvE-style game.

To be fair, ARC Raiders is more comparable to Tom Clancy’s The Division 2. The gunplay and inclination to PvE, such as having massive boss fights like the Queen, make it more similar to looter shooter games.