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November 2025 Retrospective

Just making sure that everyone is exposed to these Monty Python gems.

ARC Raiders

ARC Raiders is the first "extraction shooter" that I've played and so far it has been a mixed bag. It is pitched as a PvPvE (player versus player versus environment) game but unfortunately only half of that has been enjoyable for me.

The main issue is that the only reason you wouldn't engage in PvP is due to your own morals. There are no in-game repercussions for attacking another player. The optimal way to play ARC Raiders is to let the PvE schlubs (like myself) gather loot and then betray / ambush them. I do understand that not being certain about a player's intentions is an aspect of this game that makes it so enjoyable. When you've filled your backpack with stuff and are creeping towards an extraction spot the adrenaline is pumping. But with how long it takes to activate an extraction, combined with no way of being able to identify how much of a dick someone is, the drive to continue playing ARC Raiders is just constantly being whittled away.

There are two suggestions I would make to Embark on how they could fix / improve ARC Raiders:

  1. Allow players to queue for PvE only. I don't think Embark will ever do this as they've already made hundreds of millions of dollars. To them there is no upside to pissing off the Reddit neckbeards who would lose their minds if they couldn't just continue to be piece of shits in-game just like they are on social media. But as an olive branch to them I would also love to see PvP zones that drop better or exclusive loot. Nothing you absolutely need to "beat" the game, just more stuff for the players to chase. The idea of having to go into a PvP zone, extract some bad ass anti-ARC weapon, and then queue to fight a massive PvE boss is something that I know a lot of players would enjoy.

  2. But the real fix for ARC Raiders is to add some sort of reputation system. Whenever someone attacks another player that should immediately decrease their reputation and flag themselves to other players that they are engaging in hostile acts. This is the solution that I think Embark is actually going down but the question will be can they roll it out before interest wanes. Player count has been steady for the first month but if ARC Raiders plays exactly the same come the start of 2026 I would bet money that we'll easily see a 20% drop.

So far I've put about 30 hours into ARC Raiders and I think I have another 10 before I'll have completed all of the quests and "beaten" the game. The quality of the matchmaking has slowly been decreasing and I am not exactly certain as to why. As I play more hours am I paired with similar players who are mostly engaging in PvP? Or has the mood of the entire playerbase just slowly degraded towards bloodlust? At the beginning 95% of player interactions I had were positive. Now it is a coin flip if someone is going to shoot me on sight or not. Once I have completed all of the quests that level of uncertainty is going to give me absolutely no reason to continue playing ARC Raiders.

Battlefield 6

Unfortunately Battlefield 6 has taken the turn I expected they would and are continuing to chase the Call of Duty and Fortnite gamers. With Season 1 they added their Battle Royale competitor and modes that are designed for small maps and low player counts. You can tell that every large map they added was actually just designed to be cut up into smaller versions for other game modes because they play like shit on Conquest.

On Steam the player count has been trending downwards and on PlayStation I have noticed that the majority of large map games I queue for are full of bots. I'll bet that by the end of January we'll see daily peaks of only 100k players on Steam and it will be interesting to see what EA says in their earnings calls about the future of the Battlefield franchise. To me this will be the last one I purchase for quite some time.

Read Red Rising

I don't remember who recommended Red Rising to me but I finally picked it up from my local library and read it this month. If I was a teenager I could see how this would be one of those seminal childhood books. But as a jaded, 40-something man the YA style of writing doesn't have the same impact it once did. But to be very clear, I did still enjoy Red Rising and can completely understand how it received the acclaim that it did. I absolutely love The Dragonlance Chronicles but I recognize that much of that enjoyment stemmed from the fact that I was like 14 years old. Those books defined my childhood and solidified my interest in the fantasy genre.

I just found Red Rising to be the predictable trite that can be enjoyable in the moment while also groan-inducing. It is a stereotypical tale of a boy from poor means but who has amazing skills and can learn anything instantly, becoming the chosen one who will lead humanity to great things. You've undoubtedly read this story dozens of times but the journey that Red Rising takes you on is entertaining nevertheless.

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