Arc Raiders is not a game that immediately reveals all to its players. Much of the experience in its early hours is cautiously sussing out where to find good loot and how and when to fight or avoid the Arc robots that patrol the surface. The tentative peaceful relationships formed with other raiders are just as key. The ambiguity of not knowing what they’ll do feeds into the tension and uncertainty that keeps expeditions exciting.

That’s the overarching vibe, at least. But there are other things Arc Raiders makes abundantly clear. For instance: the Leaper.

Embark Studios could have named this four-legged, spidery walking robot, one of the first truly serious threats you’ll encounter on the surface, anything. Marauder. Devastator. Wriggler. Chuckles. I assume the studio went with Leaper because it did not need to get fancy to make these particular robots seem imposing.

All Embark’s writers needed to do was imagine what someone would shout after seeing a robot the size of a winnebago jump the length of a football field to pulp their friend who just made a little too much noise prying open a rusty dumpster. They are what they do and they do what they are.

Most fresh-faced Arc Raiders players could and probably have intuitively deduced this simple truth before they’ve even run into one of the bots in person. And yet, it seems hard to have fully internalized how leapy Leapers are until you’re the one being leaped at. Thus is born a delightfully specific strain of viral Arc Raiders clips: Players Finding Out Why Leapers Are Called That.

Like a lot of Finding Out, what immediately follows is usually bad. Thankfully it’s only bad for the Finder Outer, and very entertaining for the rest of us.

“F@*#ing ruuuuuuuuuuun”

I’ll be the rooooundabout

TIL the leaper gets its name for a reason… from r/ArcRaiders

😶

Shroud: “Stoooop”

“Guys—”

“I’ll shoot it again then”

“These guys give me the heebie-jeebies”