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Bro, just picture this: you’re part of a crew of scavengers, heading up to the surface of a post-apocalyptic world, guns in hand, adrenaline coursing, enemies all around both robotic and human. That’s literally the premise of ARC Raiders. It’s a third-person extraction shooter where you leave a safe base, enter a hazardous map, loot stuff, survive or die trying, and attempt to extract with what you found. It blends PvE (environment/AI) and PvP (other players) in a way that aims to keep things tense, unpredictable, and fun.

I jumped into ARC Raiders wanting high thrills and a solid extraction-shooter loop. What I found was a game that hits a surprising number of high notes, but also has a few rough edges. Let’s just jump into this long-ass review.


The story in ARC Raiders isn’t the typical cinematic blockbuster with ♥♥♥♥ ton of cutscenes, it’s more atmosphere, setting, and context than “here’s a hero’s journey”. The game is set in a distant future Earth where climate collapse and sinister machines (the “ARC” robots) took over the surface, forcing humanity to retreat underground into a settlement called Speranza. Raiders (that’s you) are volunteers (or daredevils) who go up to the surface (the “Topside”) to scavenge resources, weapons, relics…basically anything that can help humanity survive.

The tone is bleak, but with a sliver of hope. You’re fighting to stay alive, to get home, and maybe help rebuild something. It gives the extraction-loop more emotional weight; losing your loot or dying means more than just “I lost gear”; it means you failed humanity’s cause a little bit (in my mind anyway, I’m a bit delusional like that).

This is the meat of the review, because ARC Raiders shines (and sometimes struggles) in its systems. I’ll break this down into sections:

At its core, you start in a safe base (underground), pick load-out/weapons/gadgets, then drop into a map (30-ish minutes typical) on the surface. You loot, complete objectives/quests, fight ARC robots, maybe other players, then try to extract alive with your spoils. If you die, you lose almost everything (Except the stuff you store in your Safe Pocket).

This loop brings tension, the “will I survive?” question looms large. When you do extract, it’s rewarding. When you fail…well, you feel it. But in my playtime I found the loop compelling. I found myself thinking “just one more run” more times than I expected.

Robots & AI enemies: These are a big part of the tension. The ARC machines are smart-ish, varied, and dangerous. You’ll find standard drones, lots of smaller ones, and big hulking machines that punish sloppiness. The moment when you think “I’m safe” and then a drone breaks cover and stuns you? That punch hits. Combat against AI here is legitimately good.

What’s more, the AI reacts: if you shoot off a rotor, a drone might spin out and crash. I really loved the physics finesse. I found this added depth: you aren’t always just trading bullets, you’re managing positioning, noise, cover, and timing.

Player vs player: Here’s where the extraction genre cliché kicks in. Encounter another player or team and you immediately have to consider: friend? foe? ambush? The paranoia is real. Many moments I found myself sneaking, watching, deciding “do I engage or avoid?” The game doesn’t force you to kill every human you meet, and sometimes mutual avoidance is the smartest play.

One frequent worry in extraction shooters is: “Do I lose everything and get wound back to zero?” ARC Raiders handles this with a more approachable progression. Most of the more powerful weapons are made for dealing high damage against the machines but would not completely overwhelm against humans. That means new players can feel they have a fighting chance.

Here are key elements:

• Looting: You pick up weapons, materials, gadgets, salvage inside a run. If you extract, you bring them back and can use them; if you die, you lose them (unless in a safe pocket maybe).
  
• Crafting/upgrading: Back in base you can turn materials into weapons, gadgets, armor, and upgrade your gear. This adds motivation and a sense of growth.
  
• Skills/Progression: There’s a skill tree. You earn XP if you extract and even if you don’t, you still get XP, so you’re always progressing in some way. This makes the genre more accessible.
  
• Risk vs reward: The loop of “loot something great, survive extraction, feel awesome” works very well. But because death can hit you hard, you come to respect caution.
  
• Balance: The game tries to avoid an unbeatable loot-gap where veterans always dominate newbies. I appreciated this, in my early plays I didn’t feel completely hopeless. Some better gear helps, but it doesn’t guarantee victory. To quote: “better guns are better, but it’s never the reason you win or lose a fight.”

Here’s a quick table summarizing:

The game doesn’t just stop at core loop; there are features that smooth things out:

• The game allows you to auto-unload your backpack after a match, reducing the “inventory drag” many extraction shooters have.
  
• Tooltips explain what items do and where to find them which means less aimless looting. Good for less experienced players.
  
• Solo matchmaking tends to match you with solo players, which helps balance.

I liked these features, little things that make a big difference in my experience. It’s the kind of polish that shows the developers are thinking of more than just hardcore players.


So, wrapping up. ARC Raiders is a standout in the extraction-shooter genre right now, blending high-tension action with smart AI, accessible progression, and emergent social dynamics. It gives you that “one more run” itch, which is a sign of something good.

It’s not perfect: extraction shooters are inherently volatile (you might lose a lot), and tech/bugs can get in the way. But those are trade-offs I’m willing to accept given how many high-quality moments I had.

From me, I’d recommend it if you:

• Want extraction-type gameplay (loot-then-extract)
  
• Don’t want to start at a complete disadvantage
  
• Are okay with the possibility of frustrating losses
  
• Enjoy co-op/solo multiplayer with tension and strategy

If you don’t like losing gear, or you hate unpredictability, or you prefer story-heavy single-player experiences, you might skip this one or at least go in knowing what you’re getting.

In short, ARC Raiders gives me that punch of adrenaline, the variety of “what happens next” and the satisfaction of survival, and it does so in a way that feels fresh and approachable. So yeah…two thumbs up from me.

Rating 10/10

For full review head over to our website[www.united-critics.com]

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Desert Stalker is a gritty NSFW VN game, taking place in a post apocalyptic future where your character fights for… well, not quite survival, but banging any and every female character he can regardless of who they are, be it “step” family or complete strangers.
The game has not been released yet, and when it does it will be in early access for a few years at least, so much of the intended content will be currently unavailable.


You play as a solo, Desert Stalker who isn’t sworn into service to anyone but are at the moment working for the Queen. The game takes place in a post-apocalyptic future, where deadly supernatural-looking storms are a relatively common occurrence, but those aren’t the only threats to the people living in the desert.

You have raging bandits, looking to shish kebab anyone and anything they come across, just because they can, and disfigured mutants doing what they can to take care of their own “needs” for survival. There are other smaller factions you can come across as well, as just because they belong to the same group, they aren’t united.

Occasionally, you get to make your own choice, which affects the groups around you for better or for worse leaving them to prosper or suffer depending on what you feel like doing.


First off you can customize your preferences, which gives you the option to skip the bloody and gory parts of the game if you would rather ignore those and just skip to the good stuff in certain scenes.

The gameplay is again like most VN games pretty straightforward, but it does have a few different things going on.
For dialogue, you progress it normally as with most just scrolling through dialogue and occasionally making a choice, which sometimes only alters a bit of dialogue, while other times gives an NSFW scene, which would otherwise be skipped.
Some of your choices have consequences, which can be seen in the quest tracker, as there are several quests to be had, which update as you progress through the story, some of which you can only see the consequences of after skipping a few in-game days.
While not progressing a set part of the story, you have downtime moments where you can travel to other parts of the world map if you have any other quests to do in those areas, but sometimes you can also just spend time in your home with your wife and “step” daughters, all of which you can have NSFW scenes as you progress their stories.
Over time depending on your choices you can have new characters join your household for your own pleasure.

There are days when you will have a few quests you will have available around the house, but after those sometimes the only way to progress is to skip to the next day at which point new quests and stories will become available until you reach the end of the current content.

The game also contains an extensive library filled with in-game world lore which you can visit at any time when you are at your home.

There is also an option at a certain point, where you can switch perspectives to one of your character’s stepdaughters when she is out on her own adventures, allowing you to see what happens on her end, but that is optional.

And of course, the game also has a gallery for all the NSFW scenes, characters for whom you can have the scenes with only get revealed after meeting said characters. In case you miss some scenes, it also tells you how to get them.


The game looks about as standard as it gets for games of the same style, but it does have some nice character designs.
There are plenty of NSFW scenes to be had between a decent variety of characters.
The game also contains some cutscenes during gameplay, but they are crude and awkward.


Pros-

• Lenghty,
  
• Decent story,
  
• Plenty of NSFW scenes,
  
• Consequences for some choices.

Cons-

• Good ol’ classic “step-family” where you bang your “kids”,
  
• Not too much actually going on in terms of adventure,
  
• Clunky-looking cutscenes.

Desert Stalker is a pretty good NSFW VN with a nice variety of characters, and an interesting story, but feels like it lacks any actual feeling of adventure, as there is rarely anything actually going on to be seen.

Overall, depending on the price the game is recommended, but it will be released in early access and will supposedly stay that way for at least 3 more years so it’s up to you if you want to grab it when it releases and play it, or forget about it for a few years when it gets more content.

Gameplay Time: 7h+

Rating: 8/10

For full review head over to our website[www.united-critics.com]