Yeah yeah, sure, Arc Raiders is getting some new guns, but the real star of my session was the grapple hook. Embark made an honest-to-god grapple hook: Not the kind that zips you straight to where you aim it (that already exists), but a simulated rope that's quite rare in videogames.

The grapple hook is only a green tier gadget, but very versatile. A single hook lets you:

What makes the grapple hook so useful is that it sticks to just about anything. Wherever the hook lands becomes a pivot point that you can either climb toward, descend, or swing against. You can also redeploy the hook midair, without a cooldown or use limit, meaning you can chain swings together.

Above: Scaling a building with the grapple hook is about as fast as climbing a ladder, which is surprising.

It's a level of pendulum-based freedom that videogames rarely afford—let alone in a multiplayer environment—and makes the hook immediately fun to play with. The first match I had one, I ended up ignoring most of Pendola Pass' new locations and instead tried to see how long I could stay in the air with just the hook. I broke my ankles more than once, but in a short time I felt like the hook had tripled my movement options in Arc Raiders, and that's exciting. I really want to see how it performs on the other maps. Frozen Trail also adds a launcher that tethers two objects together and a grenade that yanks Arc bots to the ground, but I didn't test those thoroughly.

Source link