While the extraction shooter genre has been gaining quite a bit of traction thanks to major releases like Escape From Tarkov, and more recently, ARC Raiders, former director of product management for Bungie’s Marathon, Chris Sides, believes that the genre needs a better name. In an interview with the Shooter Monthly podcast (as caught by The Game Post), Sides spoke about his tenure at Bungie between June 2020 and July 2024, and the extraction shooter genre at large.
According to Sides, the biggest problem with the label of “extraction shooter” is how seemingly vague it is. He spoke about how the label can be used for a wide variety of games, from Helldivers 2 to Escape From Tarkov, since it is more of a description of gameplay mechanics than what genres typically signify.
“The problem is, Helldivers 2 can be called an extraction shooter, but it’s not,” said Sides. “The genre name is so bad. I hate the genre name of extraction shooter. When I was working on Marathon, I was working with marketing, dying to be like, ‘Can we please create a different genre name,’ because extraction shooter is so dumb. It’s the only genre where its name is a mechanic.”
He also spoke about his belief that the genre is still slowly figuring itself out with the release of games. Continuing to use Helldivers 2 as an example, he questions whether the extraction shooter label fits the co-op shooter since players also have to extract at the end of the mission. He also brings up major examples from the genre, including Escape From Tarkov, Arena Breakout, and even the recently-released ARC Raiders.
“So, you call Helldivers 2, is that an extraction shooter because you extract? No, it’s not like Tarkov at all,” he said. “So, the terminology of the genre is already terrible; it really makes it hard to compare these games. It’s why Arena Breakout and Tarkov, you can kind of look at those because they’re both extraction shooters and they kind of fit the same mold. Comparing ARC Raiders to Tarkov just doesn’t really fit. Comparing Arc Raiders to maybe like Rust could fit, and then, Rust, is that an extraction? Because it’s survival.”
“It’s just… it’s a problem. I cannot stand the name of it. So I think that when you say the extraction genre, it should hit your spot. I think it’s really the fact that the genre doesn’t even know what it is. You, as a player, how do you know what you’re going to get? And I think that’s one of the real issues with the genre itself.”
Generally speaking, whether or not a game belongs to the extraction shooter genre typically involves a number of factors. Games in the genre tend to have players set up their loadouts before heading into missions where they can find more gear or crafting materials, which they can then “extract” with them back to their home base. What sets the genre apart is the fact that players can lose everything they’re carrying if they die while on a mission, including the things they brought with them.
This means that, while games like ARC Raiders and Escape From Tarkov, and even Marathon fit quite neatly into the genre label, titles like Helldivers 2 or Deep Rock Galactic wouldn’t really qualify, since deaths in the game don’t involve losing even the things a player enters missions with.
Marathon is a new extraction shooter by Bungie that is slated to come to PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. The title doesn’t yet have a release date, however.
