ARC Raiders is the latest title from Embark Studios, the folks behind the intense action-packed FPS The Finals. It was originally announced as a co-op PvE and later switched to a PvPvE extraction shooter, something that disappointed me but pleased a lot of extraction shooter fans. Naturally, those fans and I have been anticipating the first official gameplay reveal trailer for some time to see how this new change would affect the game. Luckily, it has finally arrived.

With ARC Raiders being one of the most anticipated sci-fi games of 2025, it's no surprise that the trailer quickly amassed a lot of views. At least a dozen of those were from me, endlessly rewatching it to catch any new details and relish in the gorgeous visuals. However, there was another reason I kept rewatching it. There is something wrong with the trailer, something that is missing, and it's making me worried that ARC Raiders won't live up to its full potential.

The New ARC Raiders Gameplay Trailer Is Missing Robots

Only A Handful Appear In The Whole Trailer

ARC Raiders' first official gameplay trailer since the switch from a co-op PvE game to an extraction shooter is a pretty entertaining watch. It showcases a group of players scurrying through a sand-covered city called the Buried City as they search for medical supplies. They're hassled by other players called Raiders, and a handful of flying robots called Wasps and Hornets. There's a genuine sense of tension as the players navigate the ruined buildings and narrow alleyways, something that, at least at the start of the trailer, I found quite compelling.

As I watched it, I thought of all the articles I could write, how I could talk about my genuine excitement for ARC Raiders, and how the switch to being an extraction shooter may actually be a positive change. I've been looking for a compelling sci-fi game for a long time, and ARC Raiders seemed to fit that bill perfectly. However, when the trailer ended, all of my positivity, my love of the flares popping off whenever a player dies, and the gorgeous yet slightly uninspired visuals, quickly faded. It was replaced by an unshakable feeling that something was missing.

After some reflection, I realized that the one thing missing from this extraction shooter all about robots was the robots. Sure, there were those aforementioned drones whizzing about in the air, although they didn't seem to pose much of a problem for the people playing, serving more as momentary distractions to shoot. At the very end of the trailer, in a quick montage, there was a pretty cool four-legged robot chasing a player. However, outside of that, there were none of the titular ARCs running about, causing problems.

ARC Raiders doesn't feel as retro sci-fi as the original pitch led people to believe, it seems more focused on PvP than PvE, and those robots, the thing that made it stand out, are nowhere to be seen.

It is surprising that the innovative aspect of ARC Raiders was mostly absent from this trailer. I had to watch it a good four times just to make sure I hadn't missed one of the enormous robots shown off in the original reveal trailer. However, the more I watched the trailer, the more I felt like ARC Raiders was another generic extraction shooter. It doesn't feel as retro sci-fi as the original pitch led people to believe, it seems more focused on PvP than PvE, and those robots, the thing that made it stand out, are nowhere to be seen.

Robots Are The Only Thing Setting ARC Raiders Apart

Otherwise It's A Generic Extraction Shooter

From Tarkov and Vigor to the beloved Hunt: Showdown, there are a number of incredibly popular extraction shooters that already have dedicated fanbases. While the genre hasn't quite picked up like battle royales, it's doing pretty well and is quickly becoming a crowded market. So, naturally, ARC Raiders needs to do a lot in order to stand out from the crowd, and I assumed that its inclusion of 60's-styled robots would be its crowning feature. After all, without it, there's little else that makes it much different from the dozens of other extraction shooters.

It's not that ARC Raiders looks bad, it's that the one thing setting it apart from all the other substantially more interesting extraction shooters feels seemingly unimportant.

ARC Raiders' initial bombastic gameplay trailer - which was for the co-op PvE version of the game that was later switched to a PvP extraction shooter - featured players taking down those tiny drone robots, as well as a towering six-legged tank-like robot that destroys everything in its path. It felt like a huge event, something that players would really have to contend with and utilize everything at their disposal to take down. Of course, this was the visual that impressed players the most, myself absolutely included, and made it one of the most exciting titles to get hyped about.

I'm not hugely into co-op PvE games, but ARC Raiders definitely sold me on its premise. Even when it switched to an extraction shooter, I still remained somewhat excited because of the idea of taking on a giant robot. There aren't that many games with ARC Raider's aesthetic, nor ones about taking on giant robots to this scale. ARC Raiders proved in that first trailer that it had something special, but its recent gameplay trailer failed to show it off once again.

It is baffling to me that Embark Studios wouldn't include or even tease the larger robots in the trailer. By contrast, Hunt: Showdown's reveal trailer showcases its terrifying boss monsters as a key feature. ARC Raiders' first gameplay trailer not showcasing its robots makes them feel less than secondary, an unimportant facet of an otherwise generic extraction shooter gameplay loop. It's not that ARC Raiders looks bad, it's that the one thing setting it apart from all the other substantially more interesting extraction shooters feels seemingly unimportant.

I Hope Robots Are A Bigger Focus In The Full ARC Raiders Release

They Need To Feel Like A Genuine Threat

Of course, this is just one trailer, and it's fair to say that I may be overreacting. After all, ARC Raiders isn't due until 2025, so there's plenty of time for Embark to promote it with a plethora of flashy trailers as it did for The Finals. However, I do find it surprising that it excluded the robots that were at the forefront of its promotional materials in the first trailer intended to showcase how ARC Raiders now plays. I'm left with an abundance of questions and feeling a little unsatisfied with what ARC Raiders has to offer.

This is in direct contrast to when I first saw The Finals' reveal trailer, which blew me away with its level of destructibility and fast-paced gameplay. That enticed me in, whereas ARC Raiders has put me off wanting to play it. I'm sure there are a lot of people who are more excited than ever about ARC Raiders, and that's great. It does look like a tense extraction shooter, and there are aspects of its gameplay loop that are appealing. Undoubtedly, there will be more trailers in the future to complement this one, showcasing more environments and combat situations.

I have every faith that Embark will pull it off, especially considering how well The Finals did, at least at launch. However, I hope that the robots that made it such a compelling draw in the first place have a more significant role in the final product. There were definitely allusions to them having more to do and a greater impact on exploration in that gameplay reveal trailer, so I remain hopeful. However, if ARC Raiders lessens the impact of its robots, I find it hard to believe that it will manage to stand out in an already overstuffed genre.

Source: ARC Raiders/YouTube (1), (2), Hunt: Showdown/YouTube, The Finals/YouTube