New Year’s in Video Games (Arc Raiders 2025/2026 Edition)
I still haven’t gotten around to the digital bubbly and the good-luck lentils. #fireworks #newyear #videogame
After the Christmas micro-episode, could the New Year’s micro-episode possibly be missing? Of course not! So Artcade is going on a mission for you, and what follows is the mission log. A video log, to be precise. Bless technology. We’ll catch up again in three Wednesdays, on January 21. I need time to help Santa throw away all the torn wrapping paper from the presents. He told me it’s a light job, but I don’t trust him that much. Enjoy the read!
These days I’ve been playing Arc Raiders a lot. For anyone who doesn’t know this wonderful game, here’s the gist: the world is in ruins. Alien Roombas from space have taken over the surface, while humans live like rats underground. The coolest rats occasionally dress like they’re going to a costume party and go on raids outside to collect trash. We’re among the cool ones who decide to stick our nose out. Often you make it back home with a precious toaster or a lightbulb; other times you get disintegrated by a Roomba missile, or by some other raider with an ingrown toenail who can’t be bothered to walk and just waits near the exit for the idiot with full pockets to come back. Every now and then there are also moments of great friendship and social justice. All in all, you could absolutely live in Arc Raiders, considering the state of the real world.
Artcade has a tradition (or at least it does now) of ending the year with fireworks borrowed from video games. This year I figured a social (and slightly psychopathic) game like Arc Raiders would be the perfect stage. I got my hands on two nice packs of fireworks, a few firecrackers, and headed out to the Buried City at night without even a weapon. You should know that at night the machines are jumpy, the loot is better, and the other players are pretty tense too.
That’s not a firework, it’s a flare rocket, which means someone’s already been downed. But I didn’t get spooked: I found a spot that seemed suitable, placed the boxes of fireworks, and fired them off a little too fast.
I wasn’t fully satisfied, so I tossed a few firecrackers with a pretty underwhelming effect, and as a last resort I decided to call in a supply drop for one final boom.
Ok, that gave me a bit of satisfaction. But I still had this feeling it could be done better, somewhere nicer… so in the end I went over by the Dam, with three packs of fireworks and, again, no weapons. I have to say nobody shot me. Actually, before heading home we even danced together, but that’s part of a game where everyone plays whatever role they want: there are traitors, helpers, people who mind their own business. There’s also the kind who behaves like a perfect war photographer. I’ll probably end up like that too.
For now, with this last spectacular clip (starting tomorrow there will be videos online of two hundred players firing billions of fireworks together, I already know it), with this video, I was saying, filmed with reckless disregard for danger, I wish you a happy New Year and a fantastic start to 2026. Take care.