Arc Raiders is barely three weeks old, and Embark is making big, bold balance changes that have split the player base straight down the middle. This game is being touted as the greatest extraction shooter we've ever seen, and in a genre that still feels like it's in its infancy, Arc Raiders still sets a monumentally high bar.
Players are addicted, the game is a constant presence in Steam's top-five concurrent-player-count games, so, it's safe to say that millions are playing Arc Raiders right now. But millions aren't happy right now with the new changes to XP gaining and weapon nerfs. However, this is where you hear me out — these are all good things, and here's why I personally appreciate everything that's changed.
Arc Raiders' latest updates have nerfed a lot of great stuff
Solo players are understandably unhappy about some of the changes
In one of the biggest updates to the game in its first fortnight, Embark Studios made some rather significant changes to game balancing and XP gain. For starters, the rate at which players gain XP and progress through the levels was slowed down, which means you'd have to destroy more ARC, loot and scavenge more, and knock out more raiders, to get the same XP you did before.
Then came one of the biggest nerfs, which I'm personally not too happy with, either, which was the nerf to the Security Breach ability. Security Breaches, which are special locked containers that can only be opened with an ability earned through at least 37 levels, used to give out a horde of purple-tier weapons and blueprints to players. However, now, the spawn rate for purple-tier items has been nerfed, effectively moving Security Breach loot from guaranteed-gold to "still-worth-trying-but-don't-be-too-hopeful."
These changes have resulted in a lot of players being dissatisfied with Embark's decisions.
Add to that the fact that the Venator pistol's fire rate has been (rightfully) nerfed because it was absolutely shredding players in PvP at level 4, and that Embark nerfed the damage of one of their best weapons, the Hullcracker, and you see why these changes have suddenly resulted in a lot of people being dissatisfied with the direction the game has decided to go in, so early on in its lifecycle.
The momentum slowing down is a good thing, actually
Take a moment, enjoy the view
Now, hear me out. The momentum slowing down is a good thing, and I'm going to explain why. We're currently in week three of the Arc Raiders, and a game that has been heralded by many, including yours truly, as the greatest extraction shooter ever made, has a long, long way to go. At the rate the XP momentum was going, along with the fantastic levels of loot everyone had been getting in each run, the bulk of the players would've run out of anything new or interesting left to do.
In fact, that's a real problem that a lot of streamers are having. It's not surprising either. After all, you spend north of 10 hours every day playing a game like it's your job (because it is), and there's really no power on earth that can stop you from running out of content or things to do, is there?
For the non-streaming crowd, though, these momentum shifts are only going to help us keep playing Arc Raiders and stay invested in the game for longer. Think about it — after the first month, it would be fairly common for a lot of players to finally have the Security Breach ability, which would've resulted in more than half the players in game having more purple-tier weapons than they needed. The result? The loss of loot-anxiety. If most raiders become absolutely unafraid of losing their best weapons, then they would play like it, too — engaging more in PvP, being more reckless, and not truly caring about their inventory, all of which goes against the spirit of the game itself.
This isn't a single-player game, after all
We're all planning on sticking with this brilliant game for a while, aren't we?
Arc Raiders is not a single-player game, is it? It just bagged a nomination for multiplayer game of the year for The Game Awards 2025, and I do hope it wins, too. That said, as a multiplayer game that is doing live-service right, Arc Raiders has a long roadmap, and a long life to live. If half the player base runs out of new things to do, and decides one day to stop playing until more content rolls in, that's a disservice.
Believe me — I left The Outlast Trials after running out of content in week 1 (because launch week's content was truly bare-bones), and now that it is an absolute behemoth vis-à-vis content, I still haven't been able to get my squad back into it. Live service games, once they lose you for whatever reason, struggle to get the same numbers back even if they get back up on the horse.
Even 90 hours later, I haven't lost the excitement and terror when I find a new weapon or blueprint, trying to keep it safe.
I'm 90 hours deep into Arc Raiders (110 if you include playtests and betas), and I've only got 72% of the game's trophies, and 43% of the total blueprints. Every time I come across a new blueprint or weapon I haven't seen before, I get excited and terrified at the same time trying to keep it safe. I have maybe a couple of great guns, but I'm always afraid to take them out of the garage for a joyride lest I lose them. We're meant to stay with Arc Raiders for months to come, if not years, so slow momentum is never going to matter a year from now when we've stuck to it.
There are bigger problems Embark should've fixed first
Some huge exploits and bugs are turning players off the game
It's not like the game isn't rife with other, bigger problems, though. Outside of content running out because some folks went too fast, Arc Raiders has issues that require more immediate attention and fixing. For starters, the game has one exploit involving locked doors that hold tons of loot and can only be opened through special keys. And yet, there are players who have found ways to exploit this by getting in by clipping through the walls, and even waiting inside to ambush other players who are playing fairly.
Then, the game's de-sync issues aren't completely gone yet, and I've been shot plenty of times while fully hiding behind a corner. The stacking system in the players' stashes could definitely do with some improvements, too. The crafting UI, honestly, needs to be smoother, but it's not game-breaking. Regardless, these are the bigger problems that definitely need more addressing right now. Until then, hundreds of thousands of players are just sitting on their valuable keys right now, refusing to use them.
This is also a solos vs teams problem
Solo players' day-to-day, moment-to-moment gameplay is affected more right now
Here's how solo players who play Arc Raiders are the ones most affected by the nerfs — spend a couple of hours (or more) playing each day, and the Hullcracker is suddenly no longer a strong weapon that explodes ARCs when it touches them. The result? Solo-killing a Queen ARC is now made twice as difficult. In trios, however, it was way too easy, so the Hullcracker nerf makes sense.
If you have a team, they could go in different directions earlier, taking all the Security Breach lockers, and sharing whatever blueprints they found, leading to a full team progressing exponentially faster than any other solos player. As such, the XP gain and loot nerfs make sense, don't they? But for a solo player, the game will now take almost twice as long to "complete" in terms of blueprints and great weapons, and that's when they'd finally be able to start taking down the bigger ARC, which, right now, is something they're only able to see either teams or solo streamers achieve.
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 87/100 Critics Rec: 91%
- Released
- October 30, 2025
- ESRB
- Teen / Violence, Blood, In-Game Purchases, Users Interact
- Developer(s)
- Embark Studios
- Publisher(s)
- Embark Studios
- Engine
- Unreal Engine 5
- Genre(s)
- Extraction, Shooter, Third-Person Shooter, Survival
Even as a solo player, I welcome these changes
I can be assured that the game, for me, isn't going to be running out of steam any time soon.
Regardless, I think it's the best course of action. Anyone who doesn't have the good Security Breach loot after they upgraded but the nerf had just come down (including myself), is simply three weeks behind the rest of the players who got there earlier. In the big picture, when we'll be playing and talking about Arc Raiders a year from now, all of that is simply not going to matter, and now, I can even be more assured that the game, for me, isn't going to be running out of steam or things to do any time soon.
Embark isn't trying to stop us. Instead, they're trying to keep us playing, and I'd much rather play a game that lasts, than a game that burns bright for a couple of weeks and then fades into obscurity.
