Are Extraction Shooters the Next Big Thing in Live Service Gaming?
Battle Royales dominated live service games (LSGs) in the late ’10s and early ’20s. But with popular LSGs like Knockout City, Rumbleverse, and even Apex Legends Mobileshutting down in 2023 alone, the genre’s popularity is fading.
Big players in the battle royale genre, like Krafton and Infinity Ward, are pivoting toward a genre called extraction shooters. Is this the next breakout genre in LSGs? And what the heck is an extraction shooter anyway?
What Are Extraction Shooters?
Extraction shooters—or looter shooters as they’re sometimes described—feel like battle royales. They’d probably smell like a battle royale if you could smell them. They feel familiar. Then, the round begins.
Run into an extraction shooter guns blazing,’ and you’ll die in a second. You’ll also lose all of your loot. Forever. Such is the case with Freelancer mode in Hitman: World of Assassination.
Extraction shooters require the player to slow down. In truth, it’s one of the fewaction-packed live service gameswhere you find yourself squatting more than walking. Keep your firearm steady. But be quick about it all. You want to get in, get as much loot as possible, then get the heck out, but pressing your luck along the way. But not too much. As we said, you lose your loot forever if you die even once.
You’re also competing against other players and the environment itself. The player-versus environment (PvE) dynamic is a hallmark of extraction shooters, as you must also attend to the enemies trying to kill you. So you got to pick those moments throughout each round, calculating if you should pursue this player and steal their loot or take out that enemy or mid-match boss for serious loot. Do you risk it all or be happy with what you’ve got?
What Sets Extractions Shooters Apart From Other Competitive Shooters? A Few Examples
It is these types of moments that make extraction shooters stand way, way out from battle royales. Sure, the goal is still to survive the round. But without dying even once. Because, again, you’ll lose all of your loot.
Perhaps the best example of a strong PvE dynamic in an extraction shooter is Hunt: Showdown’s approach. Each match has players contending with mid-level-boss-types called bounties that reward you with bodacious loot if you can kill them. But you also run the risk of alerting other players to your location.
Extraction shooters don’t have to be so meta. The grandfather of the genre, Escape from Tarkov, is straightforward in its approach: brutal, unforgiving, PvP combat. Survive as you would in any battle royale, but snatch steal other player’s loot after they are eliminated. Die, and you lose everything—yet another hallmark of extraction shooters.
You have a few options for how you use your loot in Escape from Tarkov. You can break it down and upgrade your weaponry. Or sell it to other players via the in-game marketplace. The better you become, the longer you can survive, and the easier it will be to buy outright weapons that give you an edge. Escape from Tarkov is, at its core, a Capitalist’s shooter.
Spot the difference? Unlike battle royales, where the gameplay is concretely formulaic, extraction shooters have enough breathing room to deliver unique experiences from one game to the next. The PvE nature of many extraction shooters can sometimes—and often does—force players to take their eyes off eliminating others and instead focus on their own survival. Even in a game like Escape from Tarkov or the co-op cave crawler Dwarf Rock Galactic, that “fight-or-flight” dynamic that’s continually teetering sideways.
Why More Devs Are Hopping on the Extraction Shooter Bandwagon
Real talk: battle royales have exhausted LSG players. Juggling seasons, battle passes, and live events in games likeFortnitewhile also finding time to play the game can make it feel like you’restarting a side hustle from homemore than your favorite pastime.
The recipe for minimizing this exhaustion is already baked into the core gameplay of extraction shooters—developers have to keep the concept pure. Extraction shooters reward players that press their luck with one more round to win grander loot. By that same token, developers shouldn’t penalize players that can’t log in when life happens. The loot is the measure of success rather than the number of hours played.
Extraction shooters also aren’t that big of a risk. Most games can be altered enough to incorporate an extraction mode that makes them feel fresh and new. Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0’s DMZ mode is a perfect example.
Extraction games have also proven to have what it takes to attract a considerable player base. Genre-definers like Deep Rock Galactic, Escape from Tarkov, and Hunt: Showdown have had consistently active players for years. The genre has longevity, there is little risk among developers to add their own extraction mode, and the flexibility of the genre itself makes it easier for said developers to place their own spin on the game.
Are Extraction Shooters Ready for Their Breakout Moment?
Extraction shooters have proven they can attract a strong, dedicated audience that players for years rather than months. But compared to LSG behemoths like “Fortnite” and “PUBG,” those numbers pale in comparison.
Whether those numbers can increase and eventually dwarf the number of players competing in battle royale LSGs, or if extractions shooters are nothing more than a niche sub-genre remains to be seen.
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