Arc Raiders Riven Tide Update Results In Mixed Steam Reviews

Arc Raiders' latest update, Riven Tides, isn't going down well with a lot of players, as a wave of negative reviews (along with some comparisons to Helldivers 2) have dropped its recent Steam reviews to "Mixed".

Although it feels like every other extraction shooter on the market is struggling to find its footing, Arc Raiders has seemed like the one shining example of a game getting it right and sticking with a community. For most of the months following its launch, Arc Raiders had a very healthy playercount and managed to keep its community mostly happy, especially with Embark's speedy patches.

That being said, the past few months have been a little rocky for Arc Raiders, as its numbers have dropped significantly since launch. While that's natural for a game that's been out for a while, things have taken a bit of a turn for the worse following Arc Raiders' latest big update, Riven Tides, which has caused its Steam reviews to take a noticeable hit.

Arc Raiders Has Dropped To "Mixed" Recent Steam Reviews Due To Riven Tides Update

"Embark Has Clearly Hired Helldivers Devs To Do Their Balancing"

Arc Raiders having "Mixed" recent Steam reviews.

A few days ago, Arc Raiders had its big Riven Tides update, which added the titular map set on the sandy shorelines. The update seems to add quite a lot to the game but, as reported by Insider Gaming, a lot of the changes that have been made within the update aren't being positively received by players.

A raider from Arc Raiders pointing a gun in red lighting.

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By Harry Alston

As of the time of writing, Arc Raiders is sitting with a "Mixed" recent review score on Steam after over 9,000 reviews, with 36 percent of those reviews being negative. That's not the biggest drop that I've ever seen when it comes to Steam reviews, but it is a noticeable one that suggests a good deal of players are taking issue with the game, and not just for the broken crossplay we reported earlier this week.

It's worth noting that the new update hasn't helped the game's playercount much on Steam, as it peaked at 135,000 on launch day and is now regularly dropping below 100,000.

Two of the most prominent negative reviews on the Steam page right now give us a good idea of why players are so annoyed. General Borscht, who has nearly 700 hours in the game, says that every patch shows the devs are "dead set on running their game into the ground", calling out the nerfs presented as buffs (with multiple major examples), and lack of communication from Embark.

General Borscht notably says that the devs are "sucking the fun out of the game, Helldivers style", which is a sentiment shared by Göse, who said, "Embark has clearly hired Helldivers devs to do their balancing". It seems that some of the major issues with the update are to do with nerfs, just like what happened to Helldivers 2.

It's worth noting as ever that this is just the response to the game on Steam and only represents one platform of players, but it's pretty clear that some of the playerbase aren't happy with the current state of the game. Here's hoping Embark can turn it around before things start to get worse.