I already regret playing ARC Raiders Solo

ARC Raiders wasn't a game I had on my radar for most of 2025 and only really caught my attention in the last month or so. I hadn't played an extraction game before ARC Raidersmostly because none of my friends played the genre, so I was suddenly interested to hear that the game was very solo player friendly. While I love ARC Raiders So far and I think it's the perfect introduction to the extraction shooter genre for a first time player like myself, I'm starting to regret playing it solo for one important reason.

The threat of losing all the loot you've found during a match makes the high-risk, high-reward gameplay of extraction shooters that ARC Raiders exciting. And the community interactions I've experienced as a solo player have been a mix of friendly exchanges and tense combat encounters, making me feel like I'm getting a well-rounded experience. But I still think I'd prefer playing the game with a group of friends, at least initially, as playing solo exacerbates the isolated feeling of entering the Rust Belt and makes me feel incredibly vulnerable without teammates to watch my back.

Playing ARC Raiders without a squad made me jump at the shadows

ARC Raider's best tips and tricks for beginners

With no previous experience of extraction shooters to play, I played my first games ARC Raiders very carefully. My only real goals were to find some loot, maybe complete the first missions and extract to get back to the safety of Speranza without getting killed. To that end, every encounter I had—both with other Raiders and ARCs—had the intensity of a horror game, more so than the types of shooters I was used to.

Because I hadn't played in any of the past ARC Raiders playtests, like the pre-release server slam, I didn't really know how often I'd run into enemy players or how easy it would be for enemy ARCs to spot me. While the launch day meta for ARC Raiders saw players using pretty basic weapons like the Rattler and Ferro, it took me a while to understand what the time to kill was for certain weapons and how quickly I could escape and heal myself. Not having a team to back me up meant that I was on my own trying to learn these aspects of the game, which meant that the gameplay could become very intense in a way that I wasn't prepared for.

How to raid and complete Harvester Puzzle ARC Raiders

ARC Raider's sound design heightened my paranoia

By far the most horror-inducing part of ARC Raiders is the sound design that makes it feel like every action you take is alerting the entire area to your position. I spent most of my first few matches constantly crouching for fear that my steps were too high. I imagine having a squad with you provides some sort of reassurance when it comes to noise level, as you can have teammates on the lookout while you break and seek a ARC Raiders hide. Without a team behind me, I often felt like I was going crazy, startled by the odd tumbleweed or even the sound of my own footsteps.

The only advantage of playing solo is that I can sit in complete silence and listen to other players more easily than if I had a team talking to me.

Solo ARC Raiders was the scariest game I played on Halloween

Like I'm sure many others, I spent my Halloween playing games while handing out candy to trick-or-treaters. This Halloween I enjoyed playing a little:

Silent Hill b
Look outside
No, I'm not a human
ARC Raiders

Apparently, ARC Raiders is the deviation here, but I was too addicted to the game not to play it a little among the eerie selections of the evening. It is not a horror game in the traditional sense, but an attempt to survive ARC Raiders was still the absolute scariest experience I had that night.

Playing with the lights off and wandering through the dark basements of buildings on the Buried City map, only to have the constant feeling of being watched and questioning whether I really heard footsteps or just imagining it, was more tense than any feeling I've felt from a horror game in a long time. At one point I almost had a panic attack when a Tick unexpectedly jumped on my character's head, and I had to quickly react to the button prompt to shake it off. If I had been playing with a team I could at least chat with my buddies to keep my sanity, but as a solo experience it was terrifying to say the least.