ARC Raiders released last week and has already proven to be a massive hit, peaking at over 350,000 concurrent users on Steam. The extraction shooter comes from developers Embark Studios, which are known for another FPS game in Unreal Engine 5, free-to-play PvP shooter The Finals. ARC Raiders has been praised for its excellent performance by fellow game developer John Buckley, of Palworld fame.

Anyone who regularly follows new PC game launches is probably familiar with a trend of unoptimized AAA games, a lot of which is blamed on the Unreal Engine, specifically UE5. This so-called UE5 ‘slop’ has been a hot topic among PC gamers, unwarranted or not, so the performance of ARC Raiders is no doubt refreshing.

Palworld dev says ARC Raiders could be the “most technically impressive game” so far this year

John Buckley, also known as Bucky, is well-known for his role(s) as the Communications Director and Publishing Manager at Pocketpair, the developers behind Palworld – another Unreal Engine 5 game. Palworld is currently in Early Access and is due for full release (version 1.0) in 2026. Posting on X, Bucky sings his praise for ARC Raiders’ optimization, calling it a “technical marvel”.

One of the most egregious examples of Unreal Engine 5 optimization in recent memory has to be Borderlands 4, which launched back on September 12. While Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford was keen to call it “pretty damn optimal,” many fans were quick to disagree. The reliance on tech like upscaling, and in particular, frame generation, to achieve passable framerates is never something PC gamers want to face, even if it is becoming more commonplace in these large-scale games.

Borderlands 4 is an open-world game, a first for the series, while ARC Raiders opts for individual maps for difference environments, albeit large in their own right.

ARC Raiders may help reverse the negativity surrounding Unreal Engine 5, though the issue isn’t likely to go away any time soon. UE5 doesn’t inherently mean poor performance – but it’s on the devs to put in the extra work to ensure smooth performance for a wide range of hardware. Valorant is another example of an UE5 game that runs on just about anything.

The great performance of ARC Raiders doesn’t come as a surprise, given the fact The Finals also runs nicely on older hardware. The latter is more catered to a competitive crowd, so it makes sense to ensure smooth gameplay for all. Both games share almost identical system requirements, so if you can run The Finals, you should have zero problems in ARC Raiders.

ARC Raiders system requirements

About the Author

Jack Goodall

At PC Guide, Jack is mostly responsible for reporting on hardware deals. He also specializes in monitors, TVs, and headsets and can be found putting his findings together in a review or best-of guide.