Embark Studios pushed out the Riven Tides update across the ARC Raiders ecosystem just a few days ago, but it has proven to be a very divisive patch. It was supposed to be the grand finale of the Escalation roadmap, unveiling a new map, a large ARC threat, and new ways to enjoy the game, but it hasn’t landed well with fans of the ambitious extraction adventure game.
On Steam, ARC Raiders has just dropped to ‘Mixed’ in the recent review stakes, and for the first time since launch, negative reviews are outpacing the positive ones by almost double.
Riven Tides Wasn’t The Hit They Wanted
Riven Tides was penned as being the largest ARC Raiders update since the game came out in October, but it failed to generate much traction for the extraction title. The feedback was dim, and on Steam, negative reviews started rolling in thick and fast from the minute Riven Tides hit the market.
On April 29, the game secured 364 negative reviews versus 221 positive reviews. That trend continued, and every day since, ARC Raiders has generated more negativity than positivity. Things started balancing out on May 1, with the difference being a single negative review, but today is proving to be the worst day yet: 285 negative to just 154 positive, at the time of writing.
Riven Tides didn’t do too much for the player count, either. It brought about a minor spike that dissipated in just one day, even going into the weekend circulation of the update. Unfortunately, some of the changes Embark made, especially those related to PvP encouragement and weapon durability, were not well-received.
Of course, all we’re going on here is Steam, and that’s supposedly not the game’s most major platform, but it’s safe ground for a little extrapolation.
Overall, ARC Raiders still maintains a hugely high rating on Steam of 85% positivity, and that’s because it came out of the gate with such immense power. It became a whirlwind success, generating hundreds of thousands of shining reviews very early on, and it’ll take weeks of negativity to impact that overall rating.
Recently, we gave ARC Raiders another review, six months down the line, which resulted in a drop from our previous score of 10/10.
Are you still playing ARC Raiders? Let us know if you think it’s getting worse on the Insider Gaming Discord server.
For more Insider Gaming coverage, check out the news that Crimson Desert has had a huge update
Grant has been gaming for 30+ years and in the industry for 10+. You’ll probably find him playing a post-apocalyptic game or an extraction shooter somewhere.
More from Grant Taylor-Hill
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