I Became A Full-time Paramedic For Strangers In Arc Raiders, And...

Dodging, talking, and healing my way through the apocalypse.

Last week: Beat Halo: CE, Halo 2, and almost Halo 3. November is Halo month.

OK, I'll admit it: Arc Raiders can get a little boring when you're a pacifist. Casually waving hello to solo raiders as they loot the locker you were hoping to have to yourself is not as novel or fun the hundredth time it happens, especially after you've gotten so good enough at eluding Arc patrols that even they're only rarely a threat. Last week, I went on three raids in a row without firing a shot.

It's at this point that solo players looking to zest up their routine might turn to the dark side: picking fights out in the open, setting traps at extraction points, or the least forgivable 2012-ass DayZ behavior of all, shooting randos in the back after establishing a "Don't shoot!" truce. Banditry did cross my mind. PvP is pretty fun in Arc Raiders, after all, and after 43 hours I still haven't gotten to do very much of it. But I've come to value Arc Raiders' gentle culture so much (and judge every hostile player so harshly) that I can't become the hypocrite now. I'd sooner uninstall.

To treat my boredom without blackening my soul, I decided to try something else: Inspired by a Reddit clip of a self-proclaimed "rescue raider," I began deploying on solo raids with a full stack of defibrillators. The goal? Run toward downed raider flares, find the patient, and revive them.

The first hurdle to becoming an effective Arc Raiders paramedic was cardio. I'd run and run and run straight toward every flare, but most players I responded to had died by the time I got there. Not too surprising: Solo players tend to give up as soon as they're downed, assuming that even if a friendly face passes by, they won't be holding a defib that's only good for reviving others. After that first night, I'd saved a whopping two people.

Good, but not good enough. So I switched up the gameplan:

Above: The only time I've gotten the coveted "My hero!" chant from a grateful patient.

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I raced across the rooftops, landed risky jumps, and deployed ziplines to fly across maps like Spider-Man with a backpack full of drugs. That's when I started finding some real success. I'd revive at least one raider per run, sometimes two or three, and sometimes I'd have to save the same person twice.

Source: PC Gamer