The chilled-out extraction shooter Arc Raiders was one of 2025’s surprise hits, and for my money is a game that works because it gets so many small things right. The length of runs is perfect, there’s the perfect amount of distractions to regularly pull you away from the best-laid plans, and the exhilaration of making it out never gets old. And yet… man, do I dislike my inventory.
It’s slightly weird that a game that gets so much bang-on fumbles when it comes to inventory management and loadouts. Your stash is a key part of these games: it’s what you’re going in for, after all. But I really find it a bit of a pain sometimes in Arc Raiders, especially when I just want to get back in there without clicking through 15 screens and working out what I can and can’t recycle or sell. It’s the one bit of the game’s rhythm that feels off.
It does seem odd that something that would instantly improve the experience, and doesn’t really involve any meaningful change beyond basically auto-sorting a specific part of your inventory, isn’t even higher on the priority list.
“We’ve already done what we can to get the matchmaking and stuff as fast as possible,” says Watkins. “So if we can, not to say keep you out of the front end, but get you through the front end faster, I think that’s a great ambition too. Because you’re like, let’s get back in there. And you know, there’s points in games where friction is good, and spending time is good, and making you be attentive is good. Looking through a bunch of menus isn’t necessarily it.”
Amen to that. I’ve done my time in the inventory salt mines, and you can just instantly feel when a game’s got it right and when something isn’t quite right. The best part of Arc Raiders is undoubtedly being out on the surface, messing around with killer robots and hoovering up all that lovely loot. Anything that gives you more of that per hour, and less sorting through consumables and putting together a basic setup, has to be a great thing.
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