Extraction shooter is a fussy, intimidating name for what was once a fussy, intimidating genre. However, now, as you’ll see below the pool of the best extraction shooters on pc is thankfully deeper, wider, and warmer.

The genre has a couple of defining traits: you need to “extract” – leave, basically – at the end of a run to secure everything you’ve gathered so you can add it to your permanent stash, and if you die you lose what you’re carrying. But beyond that it’s surprisingly flexible, and even some of these core pillars are now being challenged. You’ll find PvP mosh pits, singleplayer-only adventures, and even a brilliant top-down shooter starring cute ducks.

Best extraction shooters on PC

It’s still a relatively young genre and plenty of projects have died before seeing the light of Steam, so the list of must-play games is short. (And yet you may still think a game is missing, in which case, do let me know in the comments.) But here are seven I recommend checking out.

Arc Raiders

Arc Raiders is, in certain lobbies, a chilled third-person shooter where random strangers gather to blast hulking flying robots (called Arc) and collect gear from Earth’s uninhabitable surface before returning underground. But it is also a cruelty machine where other players will betray you and taunt you over proximity chat while helping themselves to your hard-earned goodies.

A so-called “aggressive-based matchmaking” sorts players based on how likely they are to blast each other in the face, and the uneasy social interactions are as memorable as any firefight. A friendly solo player could go hours without a single PvP encounter, making this one of the more beginner-friendly games on this list – but if you want sweaty fights, that’s here too. And unlike many other multiplayer extraction shooters, seasonal gear wipes are entirely optional so if you want to keep all your loot forever, you can (a fact I appreciate as a new father with limited gaming time).

My least favourite thing about it are its stiff genAI voice barks – based on the work of real, and consenting, voice actors – and an apparent enthusiasm for genAI high up in the studio. I therefore always feel a bit grubby recommending it. But there’s no denying its brilliance, and I’m still enjoying it after 250 hours.

Marathon

Bungie’s sumptuous first-person gunplay mixes with the hero abilities of Apex Legends in a trippy PvP soup. Marathon’s classes, called shells, all have unique skills to suit different playstyles, from the medic Triage – whose ultimate can reboot two teammates at once – to the stealthy assassin, who goes invisible whenever they touch smoke. My personal favourite is the Thief, whose drone can literally pick the pockets of fellow raiders. It’s a mechanic I’ve never seen before and it’s emblematic of Bungie’s original hero design.

This is a more lethal extraction shooter than Arc Raiders, with quicker rounds and a faster time to kill, which makes it feel less accessible. But you accrue gear quickly even if, like me, your aim is terrible. Plus its free loadouts are unlimited, in case you don’t want to risk any gear. I’m also enjoying its colourful, exaggerated quest-givers: a bunch of shadowy megacorporations, religious bodies and revolutionaries who seem to be setting up a years-long space opera.

Escape from Duckov

In a crowd of top-down extraction shooters, two stand out: ZERO Sievert and Escape from Duckov. Duckov, which Mark lyricised wonderfully about late last year, is my favourite.

Cute quacking ducks certainly stand out in this dour genre but it’s everything else that makes Duckov magic. I’m constantly impressed by the tightrope it walks between complexity and simplicity: it is a game you feel you understand within five minutes – point gun at duck’s head, click, move on – but one that compels you to play for 50 hours as you tick off quests, build a base, explore its vast maps and upgrade your gear.

It’s cheap, singleplayer-only, and it might be the perfect entry point to the genre.

Hunt: Showdown 1896

Hunt: Showdown is one of the genre stalwarts, and seven years after its release it still feels electric. Set in the misty Louisiana bayou, the emphasis here is on squelchy stealth and ruthless PvP with guns stripped from the 19th century. Precision and caution beat aggression.

Rounds don’t revolve around high-tier loot – rather, the core aim is to defeat signature bosses, whose locations are revealed as you gather clues. Slay the boss (often a tall order) and grab the valuable bounty so you can book it to the exit. If you get out, you get money and experience but naturally, other players will try to poach the bounty from you on the way.

Its compelling long-term progression involves leveling up your “bloodline” to get new gear and traits, but it’s the sheer adrenaline of every round, the way my hair stands up at the sound of every footfall, that keeps me returning.

Witchfire

Witchfire feels like a combination of singleplayer Destiny and old-school arena shooters (Witchfire’s director also created the Painkiller series). Its inventive guns each have their own quirks, such as chaining damage between enemies, or lodging bullets in them that explode when you reload – and its dark spell-slinging feels just as good. One creates a new weak spot on enemies, another spawns an incense burner that will keep swinging as long as you shoot it occasionally.

It stretches the definition of extraction shooter but hey, this is my list. You don’t lose gear when you die but you do lose gold and the titular resource Witchfire, which you gather as you blast enemies. If you make it out alive you spend resources to unlock or upgrade better guns and spells. Rinse and repeat – and with combat this good, it’s hard to stop diving back in. It’s an Early Access game but it already looks and feels fully cooked.

The Forever Winter

In The Forever Winter, you are but an ant on the surface of a beautiful apocalypse through which mechs stomp and tanks roll. You are deliberately puny, caught in the middle of a war between factions far more powerful than humanity, and your only hope is to pop your head above the surface, scrounge a few spare parts from the corpses, and hastily retreat. The AI will shoot you on sight but their primary objective is to kill one another. It makes for a tense game that feels more like a survival horror than anything else on this list and I like that, in a genre all about domination, you are at the bottom of the food chain.

This is admittedly my most shaky recommendation because it still feels like an incomplete Early Access game, bugs and performance issues included. But if you can put up with that, there’s still plenty of heart-pounding hours to squeeze from it. Hat tip to Fraser from cheery RPS fanzine PC Gamer, who has sung about this game for more than a year.