Flashlights are supposed to be invaluable in the post-apocalypse—but in ARC Raiders, ‘they’re great for revealing your location,’ and fans can’t wait for a change

ARC Raiders is truly an amazing game. It’s a title that somehow made extraction shooters fun and approachable, streamlining the experience from start to finish. But sometimes it can falter, and the lighting, particularly, has been a popular point of contention among players.

Entering dark areas in any game, especially competitive ones, should always be a daunting experience. By its very nature, darkness instills a sense of dread in every player, immediately heightening the tension and keeping everyone on edge. In ARC Raiders, though, it’s anything but that.

You can’t see anything whatsoever, and flashlights only help others to spot you since they don’t illuminate jack but also shine brighter than the sun to those looking at you. This client-sided jank produces situations where you’re actively putting yourself at a disadvantage by utilizing one of the most powerful and valuable tools in a post-apocalyptic setting.

Players, naturally, have been vocal about this. In a post referring to Stella Montis in particular, some ARC Raiders players are asking Embark Studios to somehow go in and fix the lighting, at least on this map, but preferably elsewhere, too.

“Even daytime Stella raids seem to be like 50 percent blackouts. Not even emergency lighting, just dark,” said the original poster. “Anybody else feel like flashlights do f*ck all,” another asked, with many agreeing that no, flashlights don’t seem to help in these situations, as they seem only to be good for “revealing your location” to others.

Some have compared the game’s flashlights to those keyrings that “shine” symbolically.

“I’m just kind of tired of being totally blinded. At this point, it’s just a battle of monitors and settings, and the game doesn’t feel good when you’re just unable to see constantly,” the OP further explained. And yeah, some monitors, especially those that correct for darkness much more and are blacker as a result (OLEDs), will be at a major disadvantage.

Hardware should ideally never be the deciding factor in any competitive shooter, but Embark Studios did show how inclined they are toward fair play with their quick and summary fix of the console exploit a month or so back.

The studio seems to always be monitoring these kinds of things, and I have no doubt a hotfix is coming soon.