The era of the extraction shooter is on the horizon, if it’s not here already. Developers have toyed with the idea for years, and it’s only in the last few that the genre began to come into its own. Now, there are tons of different takes on the formula, and we’ll talk about the five top dogs today.
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The Top Five Most Exciting Extraction Shooters Available in 2024
For this piece, I’m talking specifically about extraction shooters. Games like Dark and Darker and Dungeonborne, while existing in the extraction genre, aren’t shooters, so they’re not here. I’m also leaving out early iterations of the idea, like The Division’s Dark Zone, because, as good as that mode still can be, it wasn’t the game’s main focus.
Escape from Tarkov
Escape from Tarkov is the game that showed the world what an extraction shooter could be. It remains the benchmark against which all other offerings are measured. Whenever a new extraction shooter is released, the question of “Does it do X better than Tarkov?” is inevitably asked. Ask any veteran Tarkov player, and there’s a lot that new games can do better, but any time Tarkov wipes (resetting every player’s account back to zero), droves of people return for at least a month or so to grind the game when it’s at its best.
And what makes Tarkov such a powerful force? Despite its myriad issues, there’s nothing else like it on the market. No other extraction shooter has or wants to demand as much from its player base. No other extraction shooter provides the rush of winning a fight against another player. And no other extraction shooter is nearly as punishing for failure. Put simply, Tarkov has the highest highs in the genre and the lowest lows, and it is for that fact that it remains top dog.
Arena Breakout: Infinite
The rest of my entries are in no particular order, but Arena Breakout: Infinite is in second place because it very closely follows the formula Tarkov set down while offering a more arcade-y feeling. ABI isn’t as punishing or as granular as Tarkov is, and for that reason, I enjoy it a bit more. The reduced complexity robs it of some of what makes EFT so special.
Don’t get me wrong; there aretonsof quality-of-life updates in ABI, not the least of which are the short queue times and easier access to loot. It’s easy to make money in Tarkov, so long as you know what you’re doing, but it’s easy to make money in Arena Breakout: Infinite, and you don’t have to spend a single cent to do so. ABI also doesn’t demand that you spend several hundred hours every six months earning access to all the gear and tools the game offers. Reach level three in ABI; you can buy meta gear off the market. In Tarkov, you need to reach level 15 to access the market, and even then, there are restrictions.
The vendor inventories in ABI unlock early on in your progression, creating tons of opportunities for cheaper high-end gear via barters. It might take you 75-100 hours minimum to access similar equipment for a fair price in EFT. Some people, myself included, can appreciate that kind of long-term goal. But I also love how I can choose how I engage with ABI at my own pace rather than the one set by the game.
3. Delta Force: Hawk Ops
Though only in closed alpha as of this writing, the extraction mode in Delta Force: Hawk Ops has tons of momentum. By combining the arcade feeling of a more traditional shooter with class-based combat, the devs at Team Jade have crafted something that blurs the line between hardcore tactical extraction FPS and Call of Duty‘s short-lived DMZ mode.
DMZ is definitely an inspiration here, as well, with Hawk Ops offering in-map contracts and activities that provide modest but still significant rewards. Some of them directly affect the flow of the map or unlock additional areas with better loot.
Lastly, by adding hero-shooter/class-based mechanics to the game, Delta Force: Hawk Ops opens up entirely new gameplay opportunities. Teammate down? Pop smoke and save them. Need intel on enemy positions? Use a pulse arrow to show where they are every couple of seconds. Short on healing items? Your medic has you covered. The dynamic of both solo and team play is dramatically different, thanks to Hawk Ops‘s more familiar feeling gunplay and character abilities. Its embrace of concepts outside the traditional extraction space gives it a freshness something like Arena Breakout: Infinite might lack.
Gray Zone Warfare
Gray Zone Warfare is still very early in its development, but it already has some interesting ideas on how to expand on the extraction shooter formula. The main draw is in its persistent world, where “extracting” isn’t so much getting to a point and leaving the map as it is moving from your base to your objective and back as seamlessly as possible. Extraction points have become helicopter landing pads, your base exists in the same world space as the various combat zones, and if you die, your body remains active on the field for you to go in and reclaim — if you can.
The main issue Gray Zone has is that it can quickly turn into “helicopter ride, the game.” That’s especially true if you died on the other side of its huge map, and getting back to the fight could take as long as five minutes or more, not counting gearing back up and waiting for a chopper to be available.
Despite the rough edges, I think Gray Zone has a ton of potential, especially as it gets more content and updates going forward.
Hunt Showdown
Hunt: Showdown has a ton going for it. Amazing sound design. A unique, gothic-West aesthetic. An almost equal focus on PvE and PvP. In many ways, it shares Tarkov‘s trait of having nothing else like it on the market. However, unlike Tarkov, Hunt leans into a dark fantasy setting, with heavier movement and lower-tech weaponry. Player investment is also different, as you hire different outlaws and ne’er-do-wells as the characters you take into matches.
It’s definitely not for everyone, as the heavier PvE priority means other players can more easily find you or at least know you’re coming. The main objective is to kill a spider boss and purify its remains, which acts as a clarion call for the rest of the lobby to kill you and steal your stuff. The push and pull these mechanics create is what draws people to Hunt and why it remains as relevant as ever. Sure, there are balance issues to work out, and its gameplay loop will push people away, but if you jive with it, few games can deliver the same rush.
There are more and more games entering the extraction shooter arms race, and there’s a lot of potential for the genre going forward. For those with a history in the space, it can be both exciting and a bit intimidating, even frustrating, as titles try and fail to capture the magic of the earlier or more refined entries.
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