You decide what gear to bring with you, get dropped into a map in some fashion, find loot, and try to make it to an extraction point alive. If you die, you lose what you brought with you and anything you found. Add in some AI enemies and PvP, and it can be fun. I feel that the most challenging part of making these types of games is finding that sweet spot between risk and reward. If it’s too punishing, you’ll feel frustrated, like you’re wasting your time. Too easy and it’s boring. ARC found the sweet spot. Very responsive ai enemies, working proximity chat for pvp to call a truce, very well designed maps, just enough help to keep you going back for more, great audio design, and extraction mechanics that result in some tense moments. I’ve played 4 or 5 raids on only one map and so far each time was been unique, tense, and fun. This is my first time playing an extraction shooter and I picked a great one. I’m usually pretty bad at pvp but this one just feels good.

Take on missions, collect loot, leave the area. If you die, you lose everything on you. At least as far as I know, I don’t play any but have seen some escape from tarkov videos.

It’s a derivative of the strand-type game.