Walking Into the Sunset: Is Arc Raiders’ Expedition Worth It?

On this episode of Good2Game Radio, Tony and Vance dive deep into 'Arc Raiders', focusing on whether the game’s Expedition system is truly worth the time, resources, and risk. Tony shares his firsthand experience retiring a character, starting fresh, and uncovering surprising rewards, hidden buffs, and rare loot. Along the way, they discuss player behavior, matchmaking shifts, PvP tension, and why starting over might actually feel rewarding. It’s an honest, spoiler-light breakdown for anyone debating whether to take the Expedition plunge.

Transcript

00:01.85
Tony Sisk
Hi folks, welcome back to Good2GameRadio. I'm here with Vance tonight. No Jaime. He is off doing some charity or something. So, you know, but kind of making us look bad.

00:13.70
Tony Sisk
Vance is looking bad. He's out there you serving the community and we're sitting here behind microphone talking about video games.

00:20.80
Sentfrmheaven
Right.

00:22.78
Tony Sisk
So good work for Jaime. Anyway, Vance, how's it going?

00:27.23
Sentfrmheaven
It's going, it's going, it's going, man. Christmas is almost here.

00:31.32
Tony Sisk
Awesome. Christmas. Yeah. couple of days from Christmas. um It's like December 22nd today as we record this. And yeah, I'll be glad when we're past Christmas and I won't be as broke as I am.

00:44.31
Sentfrmheaven
Absolutely.

00:47.29
Tony Sisk
ah I can start thinking about, you know, oh, and i don't have to start thinking, you know, I don't have to worry about, oh, does do I have a gift for other people I need to have a gift for?

01:01.08
Sentfrmheaven
Right, right, right.

01:01.21
Tony Sisk
So I'm sure lots of other people are feeling the same way. You know, Christmas is great, but it hurts the pocketbook for sure.

01:10.14
Sentfrmheaven
Yeah, I was at Walmart earlier. I was, you know. I seen a dad, he had like PlayStation 5 in the cart, you know, some other stuff. And I'm like, man, that's expensive basket right there, you know.

01:22.27
Tony Sisk
Oh, that's a good Christmas for that household.

01:25.85
Sentfrmheaven
Right, absolutely.

01:26.07
Tony Sisk
I mean, for the kids, anyway. I'm assuming the kids.

01:28.73
Sentfrmheaven
Right.

01:29.72
Tony Sisk
Assuming.

01:30.17
Sentfrmheaven
Right.

01:30.80
Tony Sisk
can't We assume that, you know, if somebody's buying video games, it's, you know, for the youngins. But, you know, it's modern times. Games aren't always for young people.

01:42.58
Tony Sisk
can be for any age, really. So, you know, as 53-year-old myself,

01:45.92
Sentfrmheaven
Right, right, yeah, yeah.

01:51.26
Tony Sisk
You know, hey, this is what I get enjoyment out of, either video games or board games or anything like that. My wife calls me a big nerd, so that's fine, though. I like it.

02:02.37
Tony Sisk
It's better than me out doing something else that could get me in trouble.

02:05.08
Sentfrmheaven
Right. Hey, speaking of that, you know, hope I hope this doesn't get us a ding. But have you seen the little meme that's going around? Like, um it's mainly women and it's like, oh, you have a problem with me on the game?

02:19.57
Sentfrmheaven
I could be doing crack. Do you want me doing crack? Okay, then be quiet and go lay down.

02:27.82
Sentfrmheaven
JP, she told me about it, then a question that popped on my TV. That's funny. He said, I could be doing crap. You know? Like, me playing video games is the worst thing the world. You know, I could be...

02:37.69
Tony Sisk
That's funny.

02:39.85
Sentfrmheaven
Oh, yeah.

02:41.18
Tony Sisk
Yeah.

02:41.63
Sentfrmheaven
Oh, man.

02:41.45
Tony Sisk
It's the new media. It's, you know, it's a, kind of you know, it's, it's not television. You you're just sitting there staring at the screen and you are actively engaged with the medium.

02:49.45
Sentfrmheaven
Right.

02:52.18
Tony Sisk
Um, and it's artistic. It's like, you know, tells a great story has great music as we saw with expedition 33 that one game of the year one game of the year because it was a combination of artistry right just it was hitting all these peaks of you know art and the music the which is fantastic the the artwork which is great

03:09.27
Sentfrmheaven
Right.

03:18.65
Tony Sisk
and the storytelling. So it really brings like three really big genres that people they are interested in together and you can enjoy it. and That's modern video games. So yeah, that's what I enjoy.

03:34.46
Tony Sisk
So, and we're going to talk to again tonight about one of the big titles, that has released in the last month or so, you know, Arc Raiders. We've talked about a couple of times here on the podcast, and i have i've put quite a bit of time into it, and I'll explain here in a second because the title of the podcast was, you know, the theme of the podcast just tonight is um was the expedition project in Ark Raiders worth the time and effort?

04:09.30
Tony Sisk
Are the rewards worth it, basically? And I did do the project, the expedition project. I waited too fairly late in the window, though, and I didn't really optimize my time for it. And I don't, you haven't played the game yet. You said you you just picked it up, right? So...

04:28.87
Sentfrmheaven
Yep, yep, yep, yep. Just bought it, just bought it.

04:29.24
Tony Sisk
yeah Yeah, and you're probably familiar with just me talking about, you know, some of the stuff, but the expedition was like a six phase thing that you had to do and you had to contribute lots of resources and this game, you spend a lot of time, you know, collecting resources.

04:48.45
Sentfrmheaven
Right. So, speaking of that, you said you waited late to the window. Now, do you think that... Because of what we talked about earlier, how, you know, like there people that's not playing the game with high moral standards. um Do you think that waiting late, like letting everybody else go in there get whatever they need done, do you think late was a more safer way to to go?

05:14.26
Tony Sisk
So, I mean, i I don't think it really had that big an impact um when over the over the course of the time that I've played the game. Like, the many the amount of times that I've, you know, been the victim of, you know, backstabs and stuff like that in the game.

05:34.46
Tony Sisk
Yes, at the time, they were in a nuisance and stuff like that, but in the grand kind of scheme of how much time i've spent collecting resources and stuff like that it's like it really wasn't that big a deal and i will say that there has been a shift like when the game first launched you know the the player base was pretty friendly great community still is a great community And I told you that you know maybe 80% the in encounters that you would have in the game are peaceful, nerve-wracking encounters because you just don't know, right? But they usually worked out pretty well.

06:17.50
Tony Sisk
But then you would have the 20% that did not work out well. And that was for the first few weeks of the game. And then it it shifted. And I think I told you this, where, man, it seemed like every encounter had turned...

06:32.02
Tony Sisk
kind of bloody right so it was like um you were getting firefights all the time so there was a period of time where that was prevalent and now in the last probably week and a half i have noticed a substantial shift in player behavior back to where it was even better than where it was initially now i'd

06:42.06
Sentfrmheaven
you

07:01.37
Tony Sisk
don't um i don't know if it's improvement in player player behavior or people were just like you know the the pvp thing was great but i just want to concentrate on getting my stuff done however i did see an article and um the developers kind of like you know i don't know if they came out outright and said that this was a thing or not but um AI pretty prevalent in the industry right now.

07:33.62
Tony Sisk
and I won't really necessarily call it AI. It's prevalent in games like Call Duty stuff. Skill-based matchmaking, right? So if you're if you're a Call of Duty player, you should be familiar with skill-based matchmaking. It's been a good and bad thing in that franchise. Well, in Ark Raiders, there is apparently something similar, and it's not skill-based matchmaking.

08:00.89
Tony Sisk
It is behavior-based matchmaking. So

08:07.49
Sentfrmheaven
Oh, okay, okay.

08:09.43
Tony Sisk
the the system takes a look at how you play and matches you with other players that have a history of playing the same way.

08:20.98
Tony Sisk
And I i i believe that is that is definitely something. They haven't 100% admitted to it, but they have alluded to it. And I can definitely tell if that is the case, I can definitely tell that is maybe where the shift is coming from because it seems like, man, I, when I play, I tend to, you know, i want to do my stuff. I'll help you out if you're in problem, if you have a, you know, an issue with like the, uh, the enemy AI, uh, in combat, I'll, you know, I'll jump in and help you and stuff.

08:56.92
Tony Sisk
Um, I won't shoot you in the back. Uh, And that's the majority of the players that I'm running into now. It's like, everybody's like, Hey man, don't shoot.

09:07.45
Tony Sisk
Just peaceful, peaceful, peaceful. And it's great. However, ah this begs the questions like, well, does it take the tension out of the game?

09:19.13
Tony Sisk
Right? Because, That is one of the high points of the game is that tension, right? Like, like now you want to kind of still have your head on a swivel. You don't, because it's funny.

09:35.58
Tony Sisk
The engagement just like stuff straight out of like movies and stuff where, you know, both players are pointing their weapons at each other and going, are you cool, man? Are you cool? You know, like,

09:45.82
Tony Sisk
i yeah I'm going to shoot if you don't say something, whatever. yeah Why are you acting funny? yep that Those type of engagements are actually hilarious. And it's it's it's funny to see.

09:58.55
Tony Sisk
So I don't want the behavior-based matchmaking to totally neuter the game in that regard. like You still need some of those bad apples out there, right, to make things interesting.

10:10.42
Sentfrmheaven
Right, right. Hey, well, you're going to have to shift your behavior, man. You're going to have to, you know, choose mine in the back.

10:17.85
Tony Sisk
Right. Maybe I should just start shooting people in the back so he'll put me in that lobby.

10:22.36
Sentfrmheaven
Right.

10:23.45
Tony Sisk
ah But um anyway, we were talking about the what is the expedition a event worth it, right? And it is on the surface, that is not something, I mean, on the surface, doesn't look that great, right? So let me so let me explain what would kind of what you have to do.

10:47.19
Tony Sisk
with the expedition, the the first one anyway, was you had to, there were six phases, each phase, you had to kind of, you know, give up resources of particular types and stuff, now, I had been collecting stuff for a while, so I had a bunch of stuff, so when they asked for something, oh, I already got most of that stuff, so I turned it in, there was a couple items, in a couple different phases, where i actually had to go hunt for things, wasn't that bad, didn't take me more than a couple hours to do,

10:58.76
Sentfrmheaven
you

11:17.56
Tony Sisk
When I got to the final phase, which was the sixth phase, it asked for like four different categories of contributions that amounted like to hundreds of thousands of credits of in-game items, right?

11:34.74
Tony Sisk
Of different types. So that required me to give up a large portion of my inventory, right? To meet those. to meet those It still wasn't that bad doing it.

11:44.36
Sentfrmheaven
you

11:48.09
Tony Sisk
um Now, the question is, is the reward worth all that effort? Well, the reward, one of the rewards is is really the the the reason I did it is you got permanent skill points.

12:06.04
Tony Sisk
that you could use, right, so it makes, because apparently there's like a 75 point cap or something on skill points that you can use, but this allows you to go over the cap, so that's what I wanted it for, and I'm, but I'm thinking, man, if for every skill point that you would get awarded, you needed to give one million dollars or credits in materials, one million That is a lot of material and that is a lot of work.

12:40.80
Tony Sisk
Like one, so one run.

12:41.78
Sentfrmheaven
and is That sounds like a lot of material.

12:45.45
Tony Sisk
So one, one run would say like last 10 to 15 minutes. And my whole objective is I'm going to go in here I'm gonna grab as many materials as I can. I'm gonna get out.

12:56.54
Tony Sisk
Right? yeah, ah One run might net you between 15,000 to 20,000 credits, right? So imagine how much effort it's going to take to get the maximum five skill points reward, 5 million.

13:17.33
Tony Sisk
It's going to take hours and hours and hours, right? So it's like that is a big turnoff when you're looking at the expedition.

13:28.70
Tony Sisk
But I decided, and I got, you know it's Christmas, so working a lot. um So I didn't get a chance to play as much as I wanted.

13:39.92
Tony Sisk
And I wouldn't necessarily cast myself as a casual Ark Raiders player. I'm above casual, but I'm not like one of those people that can drop like four or five hours a day on it.

13:51.12
Tony Sisk
Like, you know, an hour, you know, it's what I'm putting in.

13:52.27
Sentfrmheaven
Right.

13:55.77
Tony Sisk
So, If you do the expedition and you, you, after phase six, there's a window, which just happened, right?

14:07.22
Tony Sisk
You sign up for the expedition. So you say, I'm going to send my character off. into the wilderness. Basically the the idea is your, your character is leaving the story area and going on an expedition beyond what that, what's called the rust belt.

14:25.02
Tony Sisk
And they're never going to be seen again. You're basically retiring your character.

14:29.66
Sentfrmheaven
Hey.

14:30.30
Tony Sisk
So when you do this, you lose everything, your entire inventory, your character, is retired. um The only thing you get to keep is like the skins that you bought or earned.

14:48.57
Tony Sisk
And that's about it. Like you don't get to keep any of your quests. You have to start all the quests over again. You basically are starting a new game over. Right?

14:59.75
Sentfrmheaven
All right

15:02.46
Tony Sisk
I really thought at the last second, like, man, is this even worth it? Cause I'm only have enough materials that I'm only going to get maybe one or two skill points. Like, is that worth it?

15:14.60
Tony Sisk
I'm not even getting five. I only have enough material and enough time to earn one or two skill points. And I'm thinking, man, is this worth it? So, but I, I, I did it.

15:25.30
Tony Sisk
I signed up, put my name on the ledger and,

15:29.52
Sentfrmheaven
Mm.

15:30.23
Tony Sisk
So I woke up this morning and because the window closed this morning and when I turned the game back on for the first time since that window closed, it opened up with a new cut scene where my characters literally literally like packing their bag And walking to to the the launch bay, right? Where they're just going to leave.

15:56.79
Tony Sisk
And everybody like in the city, as you're walking past them, they're like, good luck, Raider. Good job.

16:02.12
Sentfrmheaven
Right.

16:02.20
Tony Sisk
Good luck. See on the other side. you know that That sort of stuff. it was like So you get your own little... you know, sayonara, goodbye cutscene for your character. And then they they go off into the sunset and then then the game starts like it started brand new.

16:21.82
Tony Sisk
Like, you have to make a new character. um So my first character was, you know, I made ah a female character, like a redhead female. That was my first character. and mine My new character that I made today was a gray-haired Asian dude so I'm like yeah that's me right so uh so I started over and so let me so this is the permanent rewards right this is what you get for doing the expedition so so these are the permanent awards you get a

16:43.85
Sentfrmheaven
Yeah. Yeah.

17:00.35
Tony Sisk
raider outfit or a skin called the patchwork raider outfit i actually haven't seen it yet i actually haven't gone and looked to see what it looks like yet so but you get that you get an expedition indicator icon so i guess that's you know like a patch that says that you did expedition right um you get 12 permanent stash slots This number, this number is ridiculously small, right?

17:34.39
Tony Sisk
When the bulk of the game involves you collecting resources and and kind of storing them, you can you could buy up to 200 slots.

17:45.89
Tony Sisk
To only get 12 seems very yeah stingy on their part. ah But I guess, you know, 12 is And then the final thing was skill points.

18:01.72
Tony Sisk
Now, I think I got two skill points um that are permanent, and they're given to you immediately, so I was able to immediately unlock two of the points, two of the assigned two points immediately.

18:17.72
Tony Sisk
So that's what I got. That's permanent. Now, temporary. Now, no this is interesting. So temporary... You get a 10% weapons repair efficiency buff.

18:32.50
Tony Sisk
Okay. I don't know if this is any good at all because I don't remember maybe ah repairing my weapons more than maybe twice because ah usually lost my weapons before they ever needed repairing.

18:47.58
Tony Sisk
Right? So, like, I had a blue, like a rare weapon, a blue lever action renegade rifle.

18:49.22
Sentfrmheaven
Hey.

18:57.21
Tony Sisk
that got down to a point where i had to put it back in my stash because I needed to repair it. And I i did end up repairing it. That's the only rep weapon I remember repairing. And then i ah lost it like three games later.

19:09.11
Tony Sisk
Um, but, um, so I'm not so like 10% weapon repair efficiency that for something that literally you never use.

19:20.76
Tony Sisk
Okay.

19:21.65
Sentfrmheaven
Right. Right.

19:22.18
Tony Sisk
Uh, the next thing, this is again, a temporary boost. Now this is a, this next one is the XP boost. when you're getting like, like a somewhere between a thousand and 2000 XP on a run, I guess 5% of that is what, you know, ah hundred, 200 XP points. I guess that adds up after a while, but still I'm like, it's not the greatest. Um,

19:55.00
Tony Sisk
The next thing is material boost. So you get a plus 6% more items that Scrappy. Scrappy is your chicken. chick He goes out and collects some of the base materials for you.

20:10.94
Tony Sisk
So when you go on a run and you come back and you check Scrappy, he has collected some of the base items for you, which is great.

20:17.73
Sentfrmheaven
Right.

20:19.19
Tony Sisk
And so this is a 6% material boost for that. Again, I'm like, okay. it moves the needle a little bit. I don't know. And then now here, the list this last thing right here, this is very, very

20:38.81
Tony Sisk
um unspecific, I would say. It's a buff upgrade and temporary bonuses, but they don't give you like,

20:53.40
Tony Sisk
the list of what those bonuses are but i will tell you that i i have a suspicion that is a that is a bonus to your chance to find better gear because the first run i did with my new character i went in and in i found a epic um

21:23.74
Tony Sisk
an epic silencer for a weapon, right? So, okay, that's great. And then I found an epic blueprint for a gun that now not one time did I see this gun in my first character.

21:45.18
Tony Sisk
Never even knew this gun existed. Never saw this a title of this gun. Never saw a reference to this gun. But there, within like the first two or three runs of my new character, I pick up an epic blueprint for basically an...

22:03.88
Tony Sisk
I don't know if it's an automatic heavy rifle or something like that. like I'm thinking, where does this come from? I've never seen this gun.

22:14.39
Sentfrmheaven
Right.

22:14.33
Tony Sisk
And and well was tariff what was kind of terrifying was I picked up this blueprint... And I'm like using a free loadout, which means I had no safe pocket.

22:27.45
Tony Sisk
So I'm like, man, ran for the nearest extraction. like get me out of here before i lose this. Right. So, so if within the first four or five runs of my new character, I had multiple epics.

22:35.83
Sentfrmheaven
Right, right.

22:44.15
Tony Sisk
I had multiple blueprints um that dropped for me. And I just felt like that there is there was a shift, right? Because it's not, is it a coincidence that I pick up these things, this epic weapon, literally within 30 minutes of doing the expedition, out of the expedition, when I played, now get this, oh,

23:13.18
Tony Sisk
When your character goes on expedition, it does like a credit sequence, but instead of credits, it's an achievement list, right?

23:22.23
Sentfrmheaven
Right. Jeez.

23:22.20
Tony Sisk
And you don't see this achievement list listed anywhere in a game. But when you retire your character, they show you this achievement list and it shows you how much you accomplished in all these different categories.

23:36.02
Tony Sisk
And my eyes got huge when I saw this one number. It said time spent on surface. 73 hours.

23:49.78
Tony Sisk
seventy three hours Of doing runs. not Not just being in the base. Or in the menus. Or you know.

24:00.57
Tony Sisk
Doing stuff that you would normally do. Back you know. In the home city. Right. No this was just time. Up top. In the danger zone basically.

24:12.09
Tony Sisk
So I'm like 73 hours. Wow. Now. In that 73 hours. I never saw that weapon. That I'm talking about. that And then in the first hour of playing with my new character, all of a sudden I get this epic blueprint of a weapon I've never seen before.

24:34.54
Sentfrmheaven
Right. Right.

24:35.86
Tony Sisk
ah I think there is some hidden buffs there because it says buff upgrade. Well, what is that in? Temporary bonuses? What is that? what is that They're not specific about those what those things are.

24:51.58
Tony Sisk
but I think there is a boost to finding rare items. And I think they did. They don't mention it because like, man, They don't want to run you know people going crazy over something like this.

25:03.76
Tony Sisk
they you They'll probably nerf it you know if it gets out.

25:04.66
Sentfrmheaven
Right. Right.

25:10.93
Tony Sisk
We don't want them to get nerfed.

25:14.30
Tony Sisk
We'll try to get as much stuff as I can. But I'll say I've probably got about three hours into the game since I've started my new character. character Maybe not even that. Maybe two hours.

25:25.88
Tony Sisk
And um I've already got all my work benches set back up. The base benches, i have to level them up and stuff. But because of the 73 hours I spent in-game, I have a pretty good knowledge of how things kind of run, right? So, like, I'm already well on my way.

25:52.12
Tony Sisk
back toward where I was you know i I had a lot of blueprints and stuff from my original character but I mean think what it took me days to accomplish with my first character I've already done in like an hour with the new character so yeah it probably wasn't like initially like oh man is this worth it but now i don't actually i actually feel good about the expedition choice right i'm like i i don't feel like i'm that far behind especially since it gave me that epic weapon blueprint i'm like i'm feeling pretty good so yes to me i'm gonna say yeah it was worth it so to yeah

26:10.74
Sentfrmheaven
Right, right.

26:38.04
Tony Sisk
So I'm excited that you're going to have a chance to like jump in there and give a try. um Now we'll say, if you're in squads, it's a lot more vicious.

26:49.98
Tony Sisk
ah

26:51.45
Sentfrmheaven
yeah right right yeah because that's that's always like my biggest thing is like no just like just what you're saying it's like once you go through it and then now like the second time around you're like okay yeah need that don't need that you know hoard that whatever like that but but yeah yeah yeah yeah definitely uh yeah man so you know yeah hit yeah uh your character way you waved off uh into the sunset

27:16.28
Tony Sisk
yeah, they just walk off into the sunset. Everybody says, you know, everybody's waving to them and giving them high fives. And your character kind of goes, has a little dramatic music in the background. And then character gets to the bound of border and starts walking and the the credit, the achievement list starts rolling. And I'm like, okay, okay. I feel better. i feel better. Um, so we'll see. I'm like,

27:42.90
Sentfrmheaven
Yeah.

27:42.65
Tony Sisk
Like I said, i'm like I want to get the materials to make that new weapon, though, because I really want to use it.

27:43.01
Sentfrmheaven
OK.

27:49.46
Tony Sisk
i haven't The only thing is like I have to level up my gun workshop to be able to create that weapon. So...

28:00.89
Tony Sisk
Right now, I'm only level one in my workshop. I need to get it to level three. So, and I spent a lot of time, you know, with the first character trying to get those workshop tables leveled up because they require each level of leveling up.

28:16.87
Tony Sisk
You can level up to level three. Each one requires like, you know, very specific, hard to get items. which puts you, and your character in danger a lot of times.

28:28.73
Sentfrmheaven
Right.

28:29.24
Tony Sisk
So yeah, right.

28:29.78
Sentfrmheaven
Why not? You know, right.

28:31.18
Tony Sisk
So I'm going to have to go do that. Right. But I think I've, I've learned enough where I can be the most efficient at doing it. And, and so I, that's the first thing, like I want to level up that gun workshop so I can check out this new weapon.

28:46.47
Tony Sisk
And it's kind of funny because like being able to craft your own weapon is so such a big deal because especially for rare weapons or epic weapons that are really hard to come by because there's only one epic weapon that you can buy from one of the trades people and that's the rocket launcher the and it costs like 30 000 which is him not inexpensive and the ammunition for it is also expensive so know i think i've told you it's like man you don't want to take just take it with you all the time because you're gonna lose it right you could always buy replacement if you did lose it but it's on a timer like 24 hour timer or something like that where okay if you lose your one then you gotta wait tomorrow till tomorrow to get you a new one but if you can craft your own then there you're not limited to

29:24.82
Sentfrmheaven
Right. Time frame, yeah.

29:41.27
Tony Sisk
of that sort of restriction. Now the only epic weapon I, I can't even remember.

29:45.46
Sentfrmheaven
yeah

29:48.06
Tony Sisk
Did I have an epic weapon I could craft? I didn't know. i there was, i had no epic weapons that I could craft of with my original character.

29:58.49
Tony Sisk
i could only, I could craft

30:04.07
Tony Sisk
attachments that were epic. I had a couple of attachments I could craft. Um, But for the weapon itself, I could not. And let's, so someone i've i've like four days, know, a week ago, I found an epic weapon that I'd never seen before. It was a submachine gun.

30:25.59
Tony Sisk
And i was like, oh, this is nice. I never took that weapon into the field. Not one time. Did not take it.

30:36.91
Sentfrmheaven
Right,

30:36.58
Tony Sisk
and Like, I've got this great weapon I'm never going to use because i'm I don't want to lose it. Right?

30:41.57
Sentfrmheaven
right. Right.

30:41.91
Tony Sisk
Because the thing about, like, you can't put weapons in your safe pocket. Right?

30:48.89
Sentfrmheaven
right.

30:48.64
Tony Sisk
So, they have to be in your main backpack. And if you if you lose, or if you go down, if you die, whether it be to other players or to the enemy AI, and more often than not, you're dying to the um enemy AI. Right?

31:03.42
Tony Sisk
versus other players but you're gonna lose it i'm like like last night i'm playing and i actually ended up getting off the game or after i'm on like the spaceport map and there's like a launch tower in the center of the map and i'm at the very top of the launch tower you know it's 300 meters high probably and i went to make a jump there's a gap in a walkway and i'm just you know jogging along, you know, walking along, and I was going to jump over the gap, and I've done it a dozen times, right,

31:43.48
Sentfrmheaven
Right.

31:44.64
Tony Sisk
when I went to make that jump, I realized that I did not have enough momentum, because when I've done it before, I was running full tilt, well, I had too much gear in my backpack, had a different backpack setup, whatever, so I was, I had more weight,

32:02.65
Tony Sisk
So my character wasn't able to get the momentum they needed. And as soon as I he made that jump, I realized I'd made a bad mistake.

32:14.10
Tony Sisk
And I did not make the jump. I fell short and I fell 300 feet and died. you know how much good gear I had on me?

32:23.12
Sentfrmheaven
Oh, no.

32:23.16
Tony Sisk
Oh, I mean, I was like, I had, you know, ah weapons that had all these epic modules and stuff on them, you know, just an epic backpack, epic shield, but I had all this stuff, I'm like, I lost, that was the last game I played and before i launched my character on Expedition.

32:45.88
Sentfrmheaven
yeah See, you should have loaded back in and brought your ah epic submachine gun in there with you.

32:48.10
Tony Sisk
But,

32:52.20
Sentfrmheaven
It was like, well, yeah.

32:52.47
Tony Sisk
I thought about it, I thought about it, because like, I didn't have enough to make the next tier in skill points, and, I was hoping that there was going to be somebody on the game last night that I could group up with because I wanted to offload a bunch of stuff that would just be wasted, right?

33:11.96
Tony Sisk
Like, I was like, if you had played last night, I would have given you multiple rocket launchers, the machine gun, the epic machine gun.

33:19.11
Sentfrmheaven
Right.

33:21.74
Tony Sisk
I would have given it to you because... I didn't, I was in between, right. The skill award range.

33:31.33
Sentfrmheaven
Right.

33:31.29
Tony Sisk
So if I offloaded a few hundred thousand dollars worth of equipment, it's not that big a deal because I'm not going to be able to use it. Like i I was playing with a guy, don't even know his name, playing with the night. And I think I told you, is like, Hey, I've got the stuff. I'll let you have it. You know, just kind of give me something back in exchange. It's kind of worth the same amount.

33:52.09
Tony Sisk
And, um,

33:52.48
Sentfrmheaven
Right.

33:53.88
Tony Sisk
Because I'm like, I'm not going to use this because I'm going on an expedition. So, but last night there was nobody, none of those people were on. So I'm like, oh, well, I guess this is going to be wasted.

34:06.39
Tony Sisk
ah

34:06.97
Sentfrmheaven
Ah, it should have called me.

34:12.50
Tony Sisk
But yeah.

34:13.17
Sentfrmheaven
Yeah. I could have used that to start off my character. Yeah, yeah.

34:19.39
Tony Sisk
Oh, you've been set up pretty good.

34:21.40
Sentfrmheaven
yeah yeah

34:21.39
Tony Sisk
i mean, I don't know how long you would have been able to hold on to it.

34:25.98
Sentfrmheaven
right Hey man, that's a cool looking rocket.

34:27.38
Tony Sisk
that's ah yeah dude that was like i was the on the elevator with the guy last night today um

34:29.07
Sentfrmheaven
Yeah. Oh man. here oh

34:40.57
Tony Sisk
I was looking at his weapons on his backpack. I was like, how good is that stuff? yeah You because you can see what other people are carrying. So it's like, oh, you, won if somebody, if you get your back turned to somebody, they could be looking at your gear pretty hard.

34:58.71
Sentfrmheaven
Yeah. I'm going to have to put like all but all black skins on her or something, you know, maybe try to little blend and look like something else.

35:06.46
Tony Sisk
Yeah. Yep. So anyway, that's all I got ah was for as far as is the expedition worth it? I'm thinking, yeah, I mean, it may not be worth it to everybody, but to me, I'm happy that I did the expedition.

35:21.62
Tony Sisk
So.

35:22.91
Sentfrmheaven
Well, yeah, mean, especially like, know, you didn't have any, you know, like an epic blueprint or web sort of like that. you know, like said, in your first, you know, hour, hour or two, whatever, like that, you pull that.

35:33.07
Sentfrmheaven
It's like, you know, it's almost like, you know, like, you know, you go to a Yara sale, you know, buy a couple of Pokemon cards you trade them in, you pull a Charizard. You're like, oh, all right.

35:44.28
Sentfrmheaven
You know, like, hey, trade them in, it's worth it, you know?

35:44.41
Tony Sisk
right yep so and i've already know i got and i think i got two other blueprints for things that i had with my other character but it's nice to already replace those items already so that so i'm you know it made it a little bit easier ah

36:04.89
Sentfrmheaven
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so the people that, ah you know, you I think not told you at work, like, I just, you know, where, is you know, people scream and they're playing something else, but they were saying, yeah, know, I need to, you know, get on, you know, to our greatest sport. It's no exposition, expedition.

36:19.75
Sentfrmheaven
And that's how, you know, you and I got to talk about it. So I'm going have you know, circle back and see if they did it, see if it was worth it to them, you know, how they feel about it. But, ah yeah, I mean, skill points, I mean, did like said, the skill points and the buffs,

36:33.66
Sentfrmheaven
You know, and like I said, 12 slots, you know, don't sound like a lot, you know, but it's 12 extra slots, you know. that's it

36:40.44
Tony Sisk
Right, yeah. I mean, it's still 12, I guess. But if it's permanent, right? Those are permanent. Yes, those are permanent.

36:46.77
Sentfrmheaven
Oh, permanent slots, yeah.

36:46.78
Tony Sisk
The 12 weeks to start. So if you do the next season's expedition, it starts to stack, right?

36:52.07
Sentfrmheaven
Mm.

36:53.83
Tony Sisk
it's like, okay.

36:54.55
Sentfrmheaven
Right.

36:55.64
Tony Sisk
So if I do, and you can already, like the expedition is already open. because it new it lined up with like a new season, kind of like a new season.

37:06.10
Sentfrmheaven
right we're right okay

37:06.77
Tony Sisk
so i don't well i don't know if it's a new season. It's not technically a new season because their skin list market is not reset, but I guess it's a new expedition season.

37:21.53
Tony Sisk
I'll say that. so You can already start contributing toward the next expedition. and I'm like, okay, well, I mean, I guess I can start earlier.

37:34.55
Tony Sisk
Unless I, you know, I mean...

37:35.29
Sentfrmheaven
Right, then you have couple, you know, like, you know, you might get to that five billion, you know.

37:42.19
Tony Sisk
We'll see. Like, if I get loaded down with a bunch of epic blueprints where I can craft all kinds of of really cool stuff, I might not do the extradition. Then it's like, okay, what's the chances of me being able to replace this capability?

37:54.70
Sentfrmheaven
Right, right. So now how often can, well, can you craft the is it the defibrillator the the to bring you will your teammate back squad so how often can you craft that

38:05.72
Tony Sisk
So when you're in a squad, you don't need a, if you're in a squad with somebody, you don't need a defibrillator. The defibrillator is only you're resident, somebody that's not in your squad.

38:19.93
Tony Sisk
so So solo play, you would need a defibrillator to rez somebody else. But for other people in your squad, you can just rez them, pick them back up.

38:30.67
Sentfrmheaven
Yeah,

38:31.45
Tony Sisk
Yeah. So that's nice.

38:34.39
Sentfrmheaven
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just ah just make sure you know you're somebody in the squad that can fight. Because, I mean, hey, in just case i I can wipe the team, I can still pick you up.

38:46.28
Sentfrmheaven
If I can't wipe the team. Oh, man.

38:48.02
Tony Sisk
Yeah. Yeah. That, that, the, the, the PVP in it is interesting. i'm Like,

38:58.46
Tony Sisk
I, you know, I, it's, it takes some getting used to, I guess it's because it's, it's the weapons and stuff. and You know, you don't, you don't typically are able to kill somebody with one shot unless you, I think maybe a headshot with like,

39:17.26
Tony Sisk
a heavy weapon when they're you know not paying attention um but the sniper rifle that that there was a rare sniper rifle but it uses like a medium ammo but i don't know how effective it is against other players i never used it against other players it wasn't that i mean it was okay against the ai enemies the problem is is like

39:19.09
Sentfrmheaven
Right. Right. Mm-hmm.

39:43.73
Tony Sisk
it wasn't easy to use because the way you had to look through the scope with it. So, you know, I'm like, ah, you know, so yeah, you'll see when you start playing, it's, it's, you'll see, but yeah, it's,

39:49.17
Sentfrmheaven
Right.

39:56.17
Sentfrmheaven
Yeah.

40:00.47
Sentfrmheaven
Yeah. so is it so So is it a third person or a first person or a key switch in between?

40:05.52
Tony Sisk
it's, it's third person.

40:07.20
Sentfrmheaven
Third person, OK.

40:09.84
Tony Sisk
At least using the sniper rifle.

40:10.30
Sentfrmheaven
OK.

40:12.04
Tony Sisk
then I think it zooms in like you're looking through the scope, but it's third person. So you can kind of move the camera around and see behind you and stuff a little bit.

40:19.20
Sentfrmheaven
Right. Like...

40:24.29
Tony Sisk
It doesn't have a complete 360 rotation on that camera so you because like when you're opening stuff, like you want to position yourself where you kind of see you're looking in the direction of where you think a threat might be.

40:38.74
Tony Sisk
ah so you'll see when you start playing you're gonna you're gonna see

40:45.59
Sentfrmheaven
Like, I got to look at a juror like this, you know, like.

40:49.98
Tony Sisk
yeah but yeah yeah the game won multiplayer of the year but it's i mean it's just as good a single player too like if you don't have friends on you can still play yeah i have a good time like

40:52.55
Sentfrmheaven
Yeah, that's funny.

41:02.99
Sentfrmheaven
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

41:07.86
Tony Sisk
that That's the main way I play. i'm like i ah i ah I team up with a couple people and stuff that have have picked up the game. now has been Not as many people have picked up the game as I have.

41:21.05
Tony Sisk
as I would have thought, but, uh, I think that the momentum is kind of gaining that way. So you picked up a copy and you said some of your buddies have picked up copies. So it's getting there.

41:30.81
Sentfrmheaven
Yeah.

41:30.97
Tony Sisk
It's like, Oh, the word of mouth is getting out there, winning the award and stuff. So, but yeah, it's worth it. Arc Raiders.

41:39.97
Sentfrmheaven
Yeah. Right, especially, you know, like, it's gaining in traction at the time when you figure Battlefield and Call Duty are still fairly new because when they dropped in what, November?

41:51.82
Tony Sisk
Yeah.

41:52.19
Sentfrmheaven
Something like that. So, yeah, so they're still fairly new, but, you know, for a game of... you know, like this size, you know, like to start making, you know, like a way, you know, like that's definitely a good sign. And, you know, it's like now it's just how they, you know, continue, you know, like to like develop the game, you know, and and it's like, I'm pretty sure that there's probably like a forum out there that, you know, people, you know, like yourself have X, you know, did the expedition.

42:20.34
Sentfrmheaven
And then now they're probably putting there, you know, input in feedback and stuff like that. And, you know, definitely got time to, you know, ask some things in the next expedition of, you know, like what the players want, you know.

42:31.77
Tony Sisk
Yeah. Yeah, they'll probably make adjustments and it's just and stuff like that. I will say, like, what's kind of cool is, like, how they seem to always be adding something new to the game, like a new events or new map types and stuff like that. So, you know, they just drop their winter maps.

42:52.25
Tony Sisk
it but it basically just turns the um regular maps into a weather, winter weather map or freezing cold, whatever you want to call it. Like you, you have to start like thinking about like,

43:06.46
Tony Sisk
you can't keep yourself exposed to the weather for too long. Otherwise you start suffering hypothermia and then it will literally take your health points away.

43:13.47
Sentfrmheaven
You're right.

43:15.70
Tony Sisk
Like if you stay exposed, you have to kind of move from cover to cover where you can get inside and warm up a little bit. So, um, so they just dropped that map but a couple of days ago, the winter map.

43:28.18
Tony Sisk
Um, and then there was an event going on on one of the maps yesterday. I'd never seen this thing before. And I clicked on and looked at it and it was like, oh, you to get these four keys and then go into this bunker and then do this.

43:44.01
Tony Sisk
And I thought that just sounds dangerous.

43:46.26
Tony Sisk
I'm like, I'm like,

43:47.67
Sentfrmheaven
Right. Hey, ain no a look, here, on the game of real life, I'm not going out of bunker with no stranger, you know?

43:55.06
Tony Sisk
right.

43:55.51
Sentfrmheaven
Right.

43:55.66
Tony Sisk
I'm, and yeah, it was like, okay I'm trying to collect resources right now because I'm trying to finish off this expedition. i am not spending time to go lose stuff because I know I'm going to die if I do that. Maybe later with my new character, I'll go in there if it pop if that event pops back up. but yeah They do a lot of like you know stuff like that. There's you know different map types, different map events, different stuff going on all the time. so They're really changing things up on a constant basis.

44:27.74
Tony Sisk
And so that's really cool.

44:28.64
Sentfrmheaven
Yes,

44:30.60
Tony Sisk
But yep. So yeah, I can't wait for you to get on there and try it. All right.

44:36.08
Sentfrmheaven
sir.

44:37.63
Tony Sisk
You got anything else?

44:38.30
Sentfrmheaven
Yes, sir. oh no

44:43.44
Sentfrmheaven
don't have anything else. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can't wait to play it. Can't wait to play it.

44:48.98
Tony Sisk
Yeah. Cool. All right, cool. So for our listeners out there, just to we appreciate you sitting in was sitting in with us and listening to the episode.

45:00.44
Tony Sisk
um yeah we encourage you to, to leave us a review on whatever, podcasting app that you're using on Apple or Spotify or just, uh, whatever, whatever base platform you're using, you know, be sure to drop us review, a like, subscribe to us here when the new episodes are coming out.

45:23.45
Tony Sisk
Um, and thanks again, you know, we we appreciate you guys listening on the, um, you Can't wait to ah start the new new year, 2026, with all the new games. Be sure to um stay tuned. We're going to talking about new games coming up in 2026. We're going to have our 2026 game draft coming up on was at January 19th.

45:48.65
Sentfrmheaven
Yep, January 19th.

45:48.57
Tony Sisk
uh vance yep so we're going to be uh doing our draft that we've done in the last couple of years where you know we pick uh each each participant drafts a team just like if you've done fantasy football works the same way obviously but but there's no lineups that you're submitting um from week to week you're just picking teams and or picking uh games that you think are going to be the best games and we take the average meta score from those games at a certain period of the year and then whoever has the highest average rating game rating that wins you know spider dude won it this past year who won the year before did you win it the year before vance

46:35.13
Sentfrmheaven
No, was close, but...

46:41.43
Sentfrmheaven
Was it Jaime?

46:44.02
Tony Sisk
I think it was Jaime. Yeah, it was Jaime.

46:46.84
Sentfrmheaven
Yeah, I think Jaime might have won.

46:46.54
Tony Sisk
Jaime won it the year before that. Last year, Spider Dude won. He collected on his $100 Best Buy gift card.

46:54.40
Sentfrmheaven
He's banned this year.

46:55.38
Tony Sisk
ah

46:55.88
Sentfrmheaven
Nah, he's not banned.

46:57.66
Tony Sisk
So this year, we're going to up that probably. award for best ah video game prognosticator. Um, so that and prize will go up and then, um, for next season, we're next to the next version of the game draft. So be sure, to tune into those episodes where we're doing the draft. I think we typically do that draft live too on Twitch.

47:21.85
Tony Sisk
So you, um, Check out our Twitch stream when we do that. If you're interested in joining, let us know. Each episode has a comment section where you can click on and send us a message you hear you know that you like to show or you want to come on and be part of the game draft.

47:40.06
Tony Sisk
If we have enough slots, you know we i think we're adding a couple more slots this year. So i think we had like five last year. you know, maybe we can get that up to six or seven this year.

47:51.10
Tony Sisk
I know that Spidey dude has already confirmed that he wants to play again. So, but we have a couple of spots that we'll fill. Obviously we can't promise everybody would be able be able to play, but we are going to be doing that. So again, thanks again for listening and we'll catch you guys in the next episode.

48:11.99
Sentfrmheaven
Later.