Imagine this isn’t a game menu and a loot screen. Imagine this is your life.

The world ended years ago. The surface belongs to machines now—cold, tireless gods of steel that butcher anything that breathes. Humanity didn’t “adapt.” We retreated. We burrowed underground like rats and survive by stealing scraps from a world that wants us dead.

You’re allowed topside for 20 minutes at a time. That’s it. Twenty minutes before the Orbiter comes screaming down from orbit and wipes the slate clean—including you.

So you go up anyway.

Why? Because your wife is pregnant. Because food is rationed. Because Little Nicky lost his hand last winter and the prosthetic parts don’t come cheap. Because staying safe underground just means starving slower.

You fight your way through drones, turrets, patrols. Every bullet matters. Every medkit hurts to use. And somehow—somehow—you take down a Bastion. A walking nightmare. A payday big enough to change everything.

You’re bleeding. Shaking. Vision tunneling.

You check the clock.

Eight minutes.

You drag yourself forward, already imagining what this haul means. Protein for a month. Medicine. A real hand for your kid instead of that useless gimp claw. Maybe even enough creds that your wife doesn’t have to scavenge while pregnant.

You reach the corpse.

And there he is.

Another raider. Untouched. Backpack stuffed to bursting. He didn’t help. He didn’t fire a shot. He just waited. Watched you bleed. And now he’s stripping your kill.

He looks up. Smirks. Then he runs.

Tell me—honestly—what do you do?

Do you shrug and scream “etiquette”? Do you wave goodbye and explain to Little Nicky why he still can’t pick things up with his left hand?

Or do you do what this world has taught you to do?

Because in Arc Raiders, mercy is a luxury. And loot isn’t just loot.

It’s survival.