ARC Raiders’ new gameplay trailer worries me about wasting its best feature

ARC Invaders 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 changed to a PvPvE extraction shooter, something that disappointed me but pleased many extraction shooter fans. Naturally, these fans and I have been waiting for the game’s first official reveal trailer for some time to see how this new change would affect the game. Fortunately, it has finally arrived.

With ARC Invaders Being one of the most anticipated sci-fi games of 2025, it’s no surprise that the trailer quickly racked up a lot of views. At least a dozen of them were mine, watching endlessly to catch new details and savor the gorgeous visuals. However, there was another reason I kept rewatching it. There’s something wrong with the trailer, something is missing and It’s making me worried about it ARC Invaders will not reach its full potential.

ARC Raiders’ New Gameplay Trailer Is Missing Robots

Only a few appear in the entire trailer

ARC Raiders’ The game’s first official trailer since the shift from a co-op PvE game to an extraction shooter is a very fun watch. It shows a group of players running through a sand-covered city called Buried City in search of medical supplies. They are bothered by other players called Raiders and a handful of flying robots called Wasps and Hornets. There’s a genuine sense of tension as players navigate the dilapidated buildings and narrow alleys, something that, at least at the beginning of the trailer, I found quite convincing.

As I watched, I thought about all the articles I could write, how I could talk about my genuine enthusiasm for ARC Invadersand how the switch to an extraction shooter can actually be a positive change. I’ve been looking for a compelling, science-fiction game for a long time. ARC Invaders seemed to fit that profile perfectly. However, When the trailer ended, all my positivity, my love for the flares that went off whenever a player died, and the gorgeous but slightly uninspired visuals quickly disappeared. It was replaced by an unshakable feeling that something was missing.

After some reflection, I realized that the only thing missing from this robot extraction shooter was the robots. Of course, there were those aforementioned drones buzzing through the air, though they didn’t seem to pose much of a problem for people playing the game, serving more as momentary distractions from shooting. At the very end of the trailer, in a quick montage, there was a cool four-legged robot chasing a player. However, other than that, there were none of the titular ARCs circulating, causing problems.

It is surprising that the innovative aspect of ARC Invaders was practically absent from this trailer. I had to watch it a good four times just to make sure I hadn’t missed any of the huge robots shown in the original reveal trailer. However, The more I watched the trailer, the more I felt like ARC Invaders was another generic extraction shooter. It doesn’t feel like retro sci-fi like 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 found.

Robots are the only thing that sets ARC Raiders apart

Of Tarkov and Force for the beloved Hunting: ShowdownThere are a number of incredibly popular extraction shooters that already have dedicated fan bases. Although the genre hasn’t developed like Battle Royales, it is doing very well and quickly becoming a crowded market. So naturally, ARC Invaders You need to do a lot to stand out from the crowdand I assumed the inclusion of 60s-style robots would be its highlight. After all, without it, there’s little else that makes it much different from the dozens of other extraction shooters.

ARC Raiders’ The game’s bombastic initial trailer – which was for the co-op PvE version of the game that was later changed to a PvP extraction shooter – featured players taking down those tiny robot drones, as well as an imposing six-legged tank-like robot that destroys everything in its path. It felt like a huge event, something that players would really have to face and use everything at their disposal to take down. Of course, this was the look that most impressed gamers, myself included, and made it one of the most exciting upcoming titles to get excited about.

I don’t really like cooperative PvE games, but ARC Invaders definitely sold me on its premise. Even when I switched to an extraction shooter, I still got a little excited because of the idea of ​​facing a giant robot. There aren’t many games with ARC Raider aesthetics, nor about facing giant robots on this scale. ARC Invaders proved in that first trailer that it had something special, but its recent gameplay trailer failed to showcase it once again.

It’s baffling to me that Embark Studios doesn’t include or even tease the larger robots in the trailer. In contrast, Hunting: Showdown The reveal trailer showcases its terrifying boss monsters as a main feature. ARC Raiders’ the game’s first trailer not showing its robots makes them seem less than secondaryan unimportant facet of a generic extraction shooter gameplay loop. It’s not that ARC Invaders looks bad, is that the only thing that sets it apart from all the other substantially more interesting extraction shooters seems seemingly unimportant.

I hope robots get a bigger focus in the full release of ARC Raiders

They need to feel like a genuine threat

Of course, this is just a trailer and it’s fair to say I may be exaggerating. In the end, ARC Invaders won’t release until 2025, so there’s plenty of time for Embark to promote it with a plethora of flashy trailers, like it did for The finals. However, I find it surprising that you excluded the robots that were at the forefront of your promotional materials in the first trailer intended to show how ARC Invaders Now play. I’m left with a lot of questions and feeling a little dissatisfied with what ARC Invaders has to offer.

This is in direct contrast to when I first saw The finals’ reveal trailer, which surprised me with its level of destructibility and fast-paced gameplay. It seduced me, while ARC Invaders left me wanting to play. I’m sure there are many people who are more excited than ever about ARC Invadersand that’s great. It feels like a tense extraction shooter, and there are aspects of its gameplay loop that are appealing. Undoubtedly, in the future there will be more trailers to complement this one, presenting more environments and combat situations.

I have full faith that Embark will pull it off, especially considering how well The finals did, at least at launch. However, I hope the robots that made the giveaway so appealing in the first place will play a more significant role in the final product. There were definitely hints that they would have more things to do and a bigger impact on exploration in that game reveal trailer, so I remain hopeful. However, if ARC Invaders lessens the impact of its robots, I have a hard time believing it will be able to stand out in an already overloaded genre.

Source: ARC Raiders/YouTube (1), (2), Hunting: Confrontation/YouTube, The finals/YouTube

Systems

Platform(s)

PC, PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S

Developer(s)

Embark Studios

Editor(s)

Embark Studios

CERS

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