ARC Raiders is one of the most anticipated extraction shooters in 2025, with the release day right around the corner. Developed by the creators of THE FINALS, this game is a tense and immersive experience, where other players and, most importantly, ARC machines pose a persistent threat.
I got the chance to take one last early look at ARC Raiders ahead of its launch during the closed preview event on Oct. 23. This playtest featured new loot to test out alongside the new map, Blue Gate—a gorgeous valley that serves as an entryway into the mountain ranges.
Compared to maps like the Buried City and Dam Battlegrounds, Blue Gate is more open, with plains, hills, and long sightlines, while still featuring elements of Italian architecture. It’s a beautiful view, but often interrupted by long-range weapons. Most of the time, our weapons of choice were either sniper rifles or battle rifles to scout the areas and fight from afar.
As with other maps in ARC Raiders, Blue Gate has its own secrets—with some you can interact with and others are simply there for aesthetic purposes. One of the secrets we found is a locked basement at one of the villas. The basement requires you to locate four buttons around the building to open the hatch and grab the loot inside (mainly guns, gun parts, and a blueprint). Outside that building, there’s also a hut with yet another basement. This one is open, and once inside, you can discover an eerie torture room. There’s not much you can do in it apart from looting a few more weapons, but it’s an interesting thing to encounter either way.
ARC is still there on Blue Gate and in higher numbers than usual, making it a more challenging map. There are all sorts of machines, from Bombardiers, Leapers, and Rocketeers, to Snitches, Hornets, and other weaker drones. To deal with them, we’ve been issued some anti-ARC weaponry, including the Hullcracker launcher of Epic rarity. Similar to the Wolfpack grenade, this launcher is designed to deal increased damage to ARCs on impact.
The Hullcracker made fighting ARC significantly easier. It only takes around four rockets to take down a Rocketeer and a similar amount for a Leaper. A full squad armed with Hullcrackers can declare an all-out hunt for these machines. Outside of the weapon, there were also a bunch of gadgets, including a contraption called the Photoelectric Cloak, which conceals you from ARC enemies.
All this equipment allowed us to meet the challenge of the Blue Gate, and it’s something you’ll be able to do yourself once ARC Raiders launches globally around midday CET on Oct. 30.
