ARC Raiders shows what Unreal Engine 5 is really capable of

In recent years, Unreal Engine 5 has become synonymous in many players’ minds with stutter, shader compilation issues and rough performance rather than technical elegance. Every new UE5 release seemed to trigger the same sigh: great visuals, shaky optimization. ARC Raiders, the new extraction shooter from Embark Studios, is one of the first multiplayer titles to really push back against that image – and many are already calling it a milestone for games built on Epic’s engine.

One of the loudest voices praising the game is John “Bucky” Buckley, publishing and comms lead on Palworld, who is himself deeply involved with UE5 development. He described ARC Raiders as “possibly the new benchmark for Unreal Engine development” and said it might be the most technically impressive game he has played this year. In his view, it has become trendy to dismiss anything made with Unreal as “UE slop”, but this shooter proves what the engine can deliver in the hands of a highly skilled team.

ARC Raiders is a 2025 PvPvE extraction shooter built on Unreal Engine 5, released on 30 October for PC (Steam and Epic Games Store), PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. Set on a ruined future Earth, the game pits players against ARC, a ruthless machine army that has pushed humanity into underground shelters. Raids begin with three-player squads (or solo adventurers) venturing to the surface, fighting hostile machines and rival teams, snatching up loot and then trying to extract alive. The design sits somewhere between looter shooters and Tarkov-style extraction games, but wrapped in a distinct retro-sci-fi aesthetic.

From a technical standpoint, the launch has been striking. Within minutes of release the concurrent player count on Steam surged past 100,000, later peaking around the quarter-million mark, while user reviews quickly climbed into the “Very Positive” range. All of this for a full-price, premium title, competing directly with free-to-play and live-service shooters. The servers did buckle on day one, but that looked more like a symptom of unexpectedly high demand than a fundamental netcode or infrastructure failure.

What really turns heads is how well ARC Raiders balances presentation and performance. The Buried City map at sunset has been singled out by many as one of the most jaw-dropping vistas of the year, yet the game still runs surprisingly well on mid-range hardware. Detailed lighting, dense foliage, volumetric effects and complex enemy behaviour all coexist without turning every match into a slideshow. For some developers, this is the first clear proof that Unreal Engine 5 can deliver big-scale, visually rich multiplayer action without sacrificing stability.

That makes ARC Raiders an important counterpoint to the narrative that UE5 is inherently flawed. The engine has been used in dozens of high-profile projects, but poor scaling decisions, over-ambitious settings and rushed optimization passes have often dominated the conversation. Alongside other recent positive examples, ARC Raiders suggests that the technology itself is more than competitive – the real difference lies in careful implementation, smart content choices and ruthless performance budgeting.

Embark Studios is planning for the long haul, with a support roadmap that stretches out for years: new maps, enemy types, systems and seasonal content are all on the table. If the team can maintain that cadence while preserving the game’s technical polish, ARC Raiders may not only carve out a lasting niche in the crowded extraction-shooter space, but also stand as a reference point for what Unreal Engine 5 can achieve in modern multiplayer games – the kind of title both developers and players point to when they talk about how it should look and run.

Sources:
– PC Guru – ARC Raiders as a new Unreal Engine 5 milestone
– GamesRadar – Developer reaction to ARC Raiders as a UE benchmark
– Steam – ARC Raiders
– Official site – ARC Raiders
– Notebookcheck – ARC Raiders maintains strong Steam numbers after launch
– Windows Central – ARC Raiders’ strong debut on Steam charts