Arc Raiders Doesn't Need To Be Nice To You!
Arc Raiders players say they want safety, but Kane & Lynch proved that's a lie.
Pinned down by gunfire in a dark corridor, my squad mate says over proximity chat, “Sorry! We only shot because we were afraid. But we just want to go home. You want to go home too, right?” The other team responds with a sincere apology and we bond over how fun the game is and how there are good people in these lobbies. Our peace treaty lasted right up until the enemy player mentioned he found the same weapon my teammate had been searching for all day. Proximity chat cuts off. My teammate switches back to team-only and says, “Let’s fuck em’.”
This type of treachery is the punchline to every clip catching virality now that Embark Studios’ has released their multiplayer extraction shooter ‘Arc Raiders,’ leading people to flood Embark’s Discord and subreddit with demands to: ‘PLEASE CREATE A REPUTATION SYSTEM!’ As if a little “good noodle badge” would stop someone from blasting you for your rare-tier rifle. In theory, sure, that would be nice. But let’s be honest, you don’t want a reputation system. Secretly, you want all the smoke.
Players pointed to Arc’s lore as justification: a world where the rich abandoned Earth and left the lower class to live underground while their giant death robots exterminate anyone bold enough to touch grass. We hear this call for reputation systems every time someone plays “unfair.” But back in 2007, one game proved that getting what you ask for isn’t always what you want. A game teeming with savagery. A multiplayer mode where nothing mattered but treachery in pursuit of treasure, and a visible reputation system that poisoned every lobby.
I’m talkin’ IO Interactive’s ‘Kane & Lynch: Dead Men (Fragile Alliance).
Fragile Alliance was simple: you and six other players are tasked with completing a bank heist. Get in. Cash out. The instructional commentary makes it clear: extract with a full team and you’re splitting the loot six ways. This is where the game urges you to get dirty, whatever the cost. That same instructional becomes the devil on your shoulder, stoking the flames with voice lines only audible to you:
“He’s carrying a fortune, don’t leave him alone.”
“Finally I get lucky, why the fuck should I share?”
“Mercs in the alliance split their score…Traitors don’t.”
Within Fragile Alliance existed a reputation system. Each player account displayed a calling card detailing enough robbery records and criminal stats to make a Martin Scorsese crime movie blush. A basic high score ranking system to show off your virtuosity. So how’d it go wrong?
The problem: the reputation system lived outside individual matches. Your backstabbing history became a permanent digital footprint anyone could check before the game even started. Players would gun you down before the screen faded in, all for your crimes of being a “BIG MEANIE.” Even the possibility of betrayal was enough to trigger instant executions. When data was cross-referenced, the fun was over. Knowing who the enemy was from the beginning stripped away the excitement of pulling off a heist or breaking bad.
The result: chaos became conformity.
Today, the servers for Kane & Lynch: Dead Men are long dead, but the feeling of betraying your teammates still runs deep in the psyche of players in online lobbies. Depravity and greed are parts of ourselves we rarely get to indulge, but Fragile Alliance established a playground where they were applauded, until enough was enough. Yet with Arc Raiders, we once again stare down the question of a reputation system. Requesting safety, but also wanting to wallow in the spoils of your fellow neighbor’s inventory.
If you couldn’t tell by now, I dislike reputation systems in multiplayer games, and it isn’t because I’m some blood-thirsty loot goblin. Hell, I got called a pussy and kicked from the team after we extracted for not helping backstab that guy in the opening story. Every multiplayer shooter nowadays has an anti-cheat system designed to separate real villains into their own lobbies so they can cheat against themselves, and even those fumble the ball by banning honest players half the time. So if the security program with the sole purpose of making people play fair ain’t working, what makes you think a secondary personal ranking system is gonna do god’s work?”
As players, we thrive off unpredictability in multiplayer lobbies. With unpredictability comes betrayal. The lack of a reputation system is what makes extraction shooters exciting, every encounter could go sideways. You risk everything: your gear, your escape, your dignity, all for the chance to backstab and extract alive. That’s the tension, that’s the gamble, and that fuels the ‘just one more run’ ethos.
Personally, I don’t expect Embark to add a reputation system, even if the community has a point. The lore of Arc does push for cooperation in the hope of salvation. However, players want that in the real world, not their digital ones. We want the messiness in here because this is where heart-pounding drama feels right. It’s like going to a horror movie, you want to be scared in a safe space. But if you’re reading the plot on Wikipedia beforehand, you’re just ruining the experience.
IO Interactive took that previous lesson to heart, and in 2010 they dropped “Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days.” A grittier, ultra-violent, LiveLeak-esque rail shooter that made reviewers clutch their pearls. Even my mom banned the game from the crib, and she copped us EVERY GTA ON LAUNCH!
Dog Days brought back Fragile Alliance 2, and somehow those servers are still up. Backstabbers run rampant and players aren’t calling for honor among thieves. Maybe they remember what was lost when we relied heavily on the reputation system. Nevertheless, fifteen years later, every match in Dog Days feels like your favorite extraction shooter moment, because the world is built off the messiness that players crave in their digital worlds. So why would Arc players be expected to behave any differently? In a world on the brink of collapse, I’d expect nothing less than someone trying to rob me for a couple tuna cans if it meant they’d become the tuna can king of the wasteland.
Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days is still brutal, and currently $20.00 on GOG! Those viral clips driving Arc Raiders to the top of the charts and pushing players to demand a reputation system? They’re just echoes of what K&L2 players have been doing for fifteen years in the Shanghai criminal underworld and it doesn’t even have a battle pass!
Whether you’re a big meanie or too soft to pull the trigger, one thing’s for sure: the backstabbing will continue even if morale improves.
“Shout out to my mom for banning Kane & Lynch 2 in the crib. I wasn’t mature enough. I can see that now.” - BPM+