‘Everyone is so nice in Arc Raiders’ is a phrase I’ve heard all month. Not in my experience, mate! While other players are having nice times encountering friendly groups just going about their day, I’ve been sniped less than a minute after spawn, stumbled upon traps on the extraction elevator, and had a full team of three camping outside of a key door waiting to grab all my cool loot.
Obviously, I’m not the only one, and griefers and filthy little backstabbers are rife in any extraction shooter. However, some fans who are seemingly more upset about this have created an Arc Raiders Watchlist that allows fans to publicly name and shame ne’er-do-wells in the extraction shooter.
The Speranza Watchlist is described as a “fun, community-made board where Raiders share stories about sneaky plays and topside betrayals”. It’s not made to be a moderation tool, but instead a fun way to document which players can’t be trusted with the tag line reading: “finally, a snitch you can’t shoot”.
On the site, players can submit a player’s username and the reason why they’re being reported, “so that the community can laugh, relate or warn each other”. Players are ranked from “Friendly Fool” to “Supreme Antagonist”, the latter of which is described aas a “top-tier menace wanted across the Rust Belt”.
Of course, like the creator explains, this isn’t an official moderation tool, and it’s just a fun way for the community to keep track of some of its biggest villains. Really, it actually gives Arc Raiders a feeling of cohesion, and it would actually be really neat to introduce something like this within the game. Imagine taking down a Bastion and spotting a player coming towards you only to notice that have a massive bounty attached to them for all their griefing.
I’m not someone who will ever use the Arc Raiders Watchlist… largely down to pure laziness, but it’s a cool fan addition that is uniquely Arc Raiders. Many players have been betrayed or wronged within the world of the massively popular extraction shooter, and it’s just fun to have a way to document that with the rest of the community.
In a short interview with 404 Media, the site’s creator, DougJudy, explained that not everyone is happy with the creation of the watchlist with some accusing the tool of doxxing players. (It doesn’t).
“I get why some people don’t like the idea, ‘reporting’ a player who didn’t ask for it isn’t really cool,” the Arc Raiders Watchlist creator said. “And yeah, some people could maybe use it to harass others. I’ll try my best to make sure the site doesn’t become like that, and that people understand it’s not serious at all. But if most people still don’t like it, then I’ll just drop the idea.”
Nevertheless, right now, it’s a sign of the game’s sheer popularity, and a really interesting addition to the community. With the creator planning on some major new features that limit mass reporting and more, it’s also only going to improve over time. I just think it’s neat.
