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Exposed. That’s how I felt playing Riven Tides, the new Arc Raiders map set in an abandoned coastal resort. You know when you’re having a lovely day at the beach, realize the ocean has washed away your sunscreen, and you’re two or three miles from cover? That’s the vibe. Only instead of Earth’s nearest star bearing down on you, it’s a fleet of drones, a sniper turret, and players taking potshots from the pier.
It’s not so dangerous down by the waterline. There, at the end of a long, slow gradient, the sand is bare, and the electronic hum of Arc patrols is swapped for the susurrus of waves, lapping against the shore. Removed from it all, you have time to pursue Embark’s new missions. My teammate, GamesRadar+ alumnus Alex Avard, laid down a bird trap in the shadow of a big buoy – the first stage in an experiment to measure tremors with avian help. Then, we handled the odd jobs: patching up a pipe where the water shimmered with the telltale rainbow of spilled oil, and taking photos of cracks in the sea wall that runs the length of the harbor.
Alex remarked that it felt as if we were working for the local council, and I must admit, there was a municipal flavor to these tasks. But as a resident of Great Britain, where crumbling holiday towns are dotted up and down the island, it seemed fitting enough. A certain faded glamor goes hand in hand with places like these, even in a pre-apocalyptic world, and Arc has captured that sense of charming degradation beautifully. At one point, we waved hello to a friendly pair of detectorists, searching the sand for buried gold.
Stray slightly further inland, though, and things get sweatier. Behind the walls, the dried-out dock is a sniper’s sandpit, almost devoid of hiding places. We sprinted between beached ships and rusted cargo containers, pursued by Leapers, Rocketeers, and a fear we’d left any semblance of control back on the shore. Two chancers on the roof of the Port Authority Building took aim at anything that moved. When we tried to reason with them, they explained that their Expedition progress would be reset in a few days’ time anyway, so there was little incentive for them to dodge fights.
Seaside retreat
Embark has bigged up the presence of the Arc Turbine, a new enemy type that resembles a steel ice cream cone, decorated with chocolate chips (explosive mines) and streaks of bubblegum sauce (bolts of lightning). The Turbine’s defensive protocols see it land in out-of-reach spots away from raider threats - though we still managed to get close enough to anger the thing, and were treated to a terrifying display of shock and awe.
The magic of Arc’s enemies lies in their distinct behaviors; no matter how many hours you’ve pumped into the game, your first dance with a new opponent tends to find you tripping over your own feet and crashing into the champagne tower. So it was, too, with the Vaporizer - the enormous laser drone added to the game a month ago. It soon turned the dock into a horrifying hunting ground, draining our backpacks of bandages and shield rechargers.
The Vaporizer’s special screw-you comes from its ability to reposition while firing its laser. It’s a move that works against the expectations established by other videogame bosses, and inevitably ends with a white-hot beam hitting the small of your back. Trapped in a tiny booth on the Wharf, watching the flames climb the walls, we came to regret our decision to engage. Even if we did eventually burst the Vaporizer into chunks of metal above a rock pool.
You can find contrast to the dock’s wide-open spaces in the Panorama Azzurro, a hotel with a tennis court and a rooftop bar. Arc’s brutalist architecture has long been one of its calling cards, and here the concrete majesty of the Azzurro recalls the grey, tiered resorts of Gran Canaria. The map is pockmarked with keys for various locked doors, and with no concierge to be found, the hotel interior is often teeming with players looking for the right room numbers.
Thanks to the Azzurro’s open lobby and many balconies, noise travels easily between floors – creating cacophonies of footsteps that unnerve in similar fashion to Marathon’s Cryo Archive. Of course, in Marathon you’d never hear a hollered “Friendly!” echoing down the corridors. But the friends you make on holiday rarely stay that way, do they?
After a successful shootout in the empty swimming pool, Alex and I decided to celebrate by having a go on the long, undulating slide. “Go down the middle one,” he suggested. “It’s better.” By the time I’d made it halfway to the bottom on my bum, I saw his incoming molotov, and heard his cackle as I slid haplessly through the flames. Seriously: wear sunscreen. Those burns are no joke.
