Does Arc Raiders Deserve Game Of The Year? It s More Complicated Than You Think
Jade King is Lead Features Editor for TheGamer specializing in everything from the latest reviews to in-depth interviews with people from across the industry. In her time here she has also built up a reputation for covering both animation and queer media in all forms. Previously Games Editor at Trusted Reviews, she has also written for a number of outlets on myriad different topics.
Arc Raiders is an unparalleled hit in the extraction shooter genre. Since launching at the end of last month for consoles and PC, Embark Studios’ latest project has sold millions of copies and been subject to critical acclaim. Plenty of us at TheGamer are loving it too, including lots of folks with ample knowledge of games like this.
It takes the formula introduced by games like The Division or Escape From Tarkov and puts a compelling spin on things with a wondrous aesthetic and gameplay mechanics that invite equal parts risk and experimentation. I’m still getting my bearings, so don’t expect any serious analysis on the gameplay front here.
Instead, I want to touch on some of the conversation going on right now as people ask about the space Arc Raiders occupies in the wider video game industry. Does Arc Raiders, or any game like it, deserve to win Game of the Year accolades over titles like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33?
Does Arc Raiders Deserve To Win Game Of The Year?
The short answer: Yes. Game of the Year is a term that has many different meanings depending on where and why it is used. At The Game Awards, the titles up for this accolade are selected by a jury of media outlets and individuals from around the world highlighting the very best this industry has had to offer over the past 12 months. For example, last year saw Astro Bot, Black Myth Wukong, Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, Metaphor: ReFantazio, Balatro, and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth nominated for the top prize — a fair range, but no hardcore multiplayer game amongst them.
In a matter of weeks, we will see six games from this year nominated for the very same honour, and I wouldn’t be shocked if Arc Raiders is among them. At the very least, it’s likely to dominate the multiplayer and shooter categories if all this hype and critical acclaim is not just for show. That’s one of the major factors to consider here though, and whether industry award shows are designed to celebrate the here and now before moving on, or act as some sort of enduring flashpoint in which these games can be revisited for decades to come.
The audience vote only counts for ten percent at The Game Awards, so the majority sway is still made by a panel of industry professionals. This likely won’t work in Arc’s favour.
Chances are that the servers for Arc Raiders won’t even be online in ten years time, and its audience will have been whittled down to a hardcore community in which only the hardened players stick around. It’s representative of current industry trends rather than being a piece of art in its own right, which is something that should be taken into consideration.
I mean just look at when Overwatch took home the gold back in 2016. Nine years later and it’s a hollow shell of what it once was, when we could have instead given the honours to something like Uncharted 4 or Inside.
This discourse began when popular streamer Shroud called on his fans to stop Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 from winning Game of the Year, putting his support behind Arc Raiders instead, as he suggested single-player campaigns aren’t deserving of such honours. He also claimed multiplayer fans make up the “minority” of voters at shows like this.
Arc Raiders would technically be the third ‘multiplayer’ game to win GOTY and TGA, but since the second was the couch co-op It Takes Two, that’s not quite in the spirit of Overwatch and Arc Raiders.
I’m not sure if that’s true, especially considering Arc Raiders just broke 400,000 concurrent players on Steam. Those are similar numbers to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, but I don’t see why we need to put these two against each other when they can so easily co-exist.
Why Does Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Deserve To Win Instead?
Sandfall Interactive’s Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a masterpiece, and feels like an act of defiance in the current landscape. It isn’t a triple-A blockbuster, but a smaller project made by a reasonable team on a modest budget. People love it so damn much and millions of copies have been sold because its creative vision is never once compromised. It’s not trying to make money through microtransactions or bowing to industry trends; Instead, it builds upon RPG classics to craft a new foundation for the current generation.
Much like Baldur’s Gate 3 in 2024, its critical acclaim feels like an act of rebellion, an obvious sign that deep, compelling, narrative-driven experiences can make money and attract plenty of players without selling their souls to corporate overlords. I’m not claiming that Arc Raiders has sold its soul, but it is occupying a genre that is enjoying its time in the sun right now and will inevitably fade away once players grow bored with it.
It’s also not a complete experience in its own right, and will be subject to continued updates in the months and years to come. You can label it as your personal Game of the Year, but I’m still conflicted about the place it can occupy next to a finished title like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 whose entire mass will be contained in 2025. Clair is going to age much better, as we’ve already seen proof of that in the past.
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Personal bias is always going to be a factor in deciding the best game of any given year, but I also think major award shows have a responsibility to give these accolades to those which best define a given period of time and will do so for decades to come. We also need to get to a place in which vastly different games are able to exist on the same playing field without the need to draw ideological lines in the sand claiming one is fundamentally better than another.
Arc Raiders is obviously great, and wouldn’t be subject to such critical and commercial acclaim if it wasn’t. But whether it deserves to make its mark on history remains to be seen.
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