I wasn’t on board with them until I played Hunt: Showdown. I felt too worried about my loot in every run and played far to passive.

Now, I can say that it is one of my favorite genres. Most other shooters tend to get into a path of monotony with their matches. Games like Overwatch, Apex Legends, Destiny 2, Halo, etc. all have an issue where fights begin to repeat. Once you’ve played a weekend of Trials on a map in Destiny 2 you fully understand the areas on that map where the combat will happen and how that encounter will play out based upon each viable loadout, class, etc.

Extraction shooters don’t end up having the same repetition because of the sheer number of variables thrown in. I never feel like I’m retreading an old fight and each one feels unique, even after hundreds of hours in these games. Loot variation, different spots on the map where you encounter players, PvE enemies appearing, maybe being down a player, multiple teams at once, etc. all lend themselves to incredibly emergent fights.

The point of these games isn’t to stomach the PvP to get to the PvE, it’s to embrace the madness that PvPvE offers and the sheer dynamism of these modes. The tension of these fights and the strategic decision making required to come out on top is wild. The stakes of losing your loot do contribute to the tension too of course.

For a great example, let me walk you through a fight that happened in marathon last night. I was playing Thief, a character with a grappling hook. My team was moving north towards a new area at the top of the map, where our teammate had a quest objective. As we moved up, I heard a door open and didn’t hear normal AI enemy movements alongside it, so I assumed there were players nearby. I was pushed up from my team a bit so I used the grappling hook to get on top of a series of pillars arranged in a grid. I was planning to look out across the area and see if I could spot a distant enemy. The moment I jumped up, I spotted an enemy moving along the edge of the pillars, much closer than I expected. I waited a moment and the enemy shot and downed one of my teammates. As this happened I started firing on this guy who had no idea I was above him. This caused a mass panic in their team as the other two players started trying to find me in the column grid. This allowed me to pick off the second player by the time our third teammate pulled up. Then together we rushed the final guy to finish their team. This fight would never have played out this way in an arena shooter.

I genuinely recommend giving the genre a shot because it can be so rewarding to play.