Nothing to lose, everything to gain: Why the free loadout in Arc Raiders is too strong

At its core, extraction shooters thrive on a simple premise: risk vs. reward. The better your Arc Raiders loadout, the more equipped you are to handle ARCs and other players, but this also means you’ll lose it all in the blink of an eye. This tension defines the genre.

The game offers players unlimited use of the Arc Raiders’ free loadout, providing them with decent gear at no personal cost all the time. While it’s intended to be a safety net or a catch-up mechanic, it gives a bit too much upside for too little downside. Embark Studios should take a closer look at this free loadout before it continues to dilute what makes the game so compelling.

In the game’s pre-match lobby, players can create a custom loadout with the Arc Raiders’ loadout builder to enter a raid or navigate to the “Free Loadout” tab. Choosing this option boots you up topside with a random set of basic gear and a few caveats.

Once topside, expect to have one of the starting grey guns like the Sticher, Kettle, Ferro, or Rattler, essentially the Arc Raider’s basic loadout. Additionally, you’ll also receive a small amount of healing items like Bandages, Shield Recharger, and other quick-use items such as a Defibrillator, Door Blocker, and the occasional grenade.

The extremely barebones loadout also comes with fewer inventory slots and no Safe Pocket. With no secure slot to guarantee an item or two back to Speranza, the Free Loadout is great for powering through a quest, but bad if you need to bring back items to upgrade Scrappy or your workbenches. 

One other disadvantage is that you don’t have an augment running the free loadout. The tradeoff allows you to deploy with a full kit without risking any of your own stashed gear, and you can get to bring back anything with you upon extraction. 

The best part is that there’s no cooldown to using the free kit, and you can go right back topside with new gear the next match. So, while players are busy managing the multiple shops and in-game menus, free loadout players are already topside bum rushing their next target.

Arc Raiders’ free loadout option dramatically tilts the scales of the typical extraction shooter formula. The most obvious advantage of the free loadout is the complete mitigation of risk, which is the cornerstone of the genre.

Take note of your anxious state of mind when running a custom high-stakes loadout compared to the carefree riskless kit. The healthier state of mind means you’re playing without fear and have nothing to lose, which means you can take on fights against other players that you wouldn’t normally take on.

In a fair fight, the odds are against you. However, add exploitative tactics like ratting, ambushing, camping extraction points, or third-partying over the course of multiple games, and you’ll eventually take down a raider stacked up with goodies ripe for the taking. 

They have everything to gain and nothing to lose but their time. Have you ever noticed that the most aggressive players in Arc Raiders are typically equipped with a free loadout?

The widespread use of free loadouts has ripple effects on Arc Raiders’ overall gameplay economy and player progression as well. When servers are filled with free kit players, this disincentivises prepared players from engaging in PvP, since they’re using up too many resources for little gain.

The value of gear is distorted, and it only gets worse in high-reward maps like Stella Montis. While it undoubtedly helps newcomers and prevents frustration in the short-term, the long-term effect is a meta that feels skewed toward ambushes with low-rarity loot as rewards.

As it stands, the free loadout in Arc Raiders is great as a catch-up mechanic, but it’s also optimal to use outside of it. With nothing to lose, there is no thrill or tension, which ruins the experience for all parties involved.

One sensible fix would be to implement a cooldown or limit on free loadout uses. For example, one free kit every 30 minutes (similar to The Cycle’s approach) or a limited number of free loadout deployments per day. This would force players to think twice about relying exclusively on no-risk runs, nudging them to dip into their own gear stash for back-to-back raids. 

It’s also baffling and downright disrespectful to players risking their loot when players with free kits can join the raid from the very start, instead of making them join later into the raid. Not only do free loadout players have more to gain from PvP, but they can also be in a prime position to contest the best loot from points of interest in the map.

Making players use the free loadout later in the raid would be a fair tradeoff. Furthermore, another small downside could be reduced XP gains to encourage players to bring their own loadout to the raid and reintroduce meaningful stakes to the game.

The grandaddy of all extraction shooters, Escape from Tarkov, has its own version of a low-risk raid with Scav Run mode. In this mode, you don’t play as your main PMC character, but a random scavenger who spawns late into the raid. Like the Cycle, there’s a cooldown so that players aren’t in a consequence-free nonstop loop.

Another fun thing is that the scavenger is almost indistinguishable from the NPC scavs, adding another layer of mistrust.

Similarly, Call of Duty’s DMZ mode withholds the free loadout from you until you’re at rock bottom without any contraband weapons in your stash. Only then will they give you the option to bring a free loadout with randomised but basic weapons

Hunt: Showdown also offers free hunters when players have less than 20,000 Hunt Dollars. The Tier I Hunter has weaker gear and only 2-3 Traits, which are passive bonuses that can make or break the loadout.

In all these cases, the developers walk a fine line. They want to avoid the situation where a player is completely broke and unable to play (hence a free or cheap starter kit), but they also want to maintain an overarching sense of stakes, something Arc Raiders should consider.

Arc Raiders’ free loadout stands out due to its generosity and frequency. However, compared to its peers in the genre, Arc’s approach arguably takes the tension out of the extraction genre.

It’s a delicate balance, and right now, Arc Raiders might be leaning too far in the forgiving direction, and could risk alienating or discouraging players from engaging with the game’s systems.