Just before the official release of ARC Raiders, players can experience the first content of the extraction shooter in the last tech test. However, they regularly encounter an “enemy” that terrifies them.
Which “enemy” is being referred to? On Reddit, several players are discussing a nasty surprise in the game that collectively scares them so much that it’s nearly feared more than the actual mechanical enemies of the game.
It’s about the treacherous step runners that move across the map when you least expect them.
“Why did they have to add so many step runners, man?” wonders the player beau-bee- on Reddit, “They could have saved me so many heart attacks!”
The plant bushes are so feared that a post on Reddit received over 3,000 upvotes, where a player describes them as more frightening than arcs or enemy raiders. The thread highlights how disliked the jump scares caused by the step runner are, but they didn’t consider an equally nasty perpetrator.
Here you see the habitat of the hostile bushes in ARC Raiders:
“Those things give me a mini heart attack every time”
What else do players fear? In addition to the wicked step runner of horror, there is another candidate that players fear – and again it is not a combat machine:
“A little piece of old newspaper flying out of nowhere shouldn’t be scarier than machines that can kill a person in an instant, yet here we are,” writes bartolinise on Reddit and he is not alone in this fear.
Overseer_Allie reports on Reddit: “One literally flew out of the screen at me today. That was the only time I’ve recoiled in this game so far.”
The newspapers and magazines not only appear surprisingly out of nowhere according to players but also make them reflexively waste all their ammunition.
“My goodness, if I got a dollar every time I mistook that for a player,” admits sour_dough_rye (on Reddit) and even ididntevenwantit can relate very well: “I have yet to defeat any” (via Reddit).
However, this confusion can also backfire, as can be seen in this YouTube short from @VeryBadSCAV, where the term “step runner meta” has already come up:
What do players criticize about it? Apart from the scare factor, the frequency of these flying elements is especially criticized, as they appeared in such numbers that they restrict visibility.
“Joking aside, I find the frequency of step runners and floating debris a bit excessive at the moment,” writes Grin_N_Bare_Arms on Reddit, “In a game that requires recognizing movements, the current amount of visual distractions is just distracting and frustrating.”
However, player DucksterVR sees it a bit differently: “They definitely did that on purpose, lol. Keeps players on their toes” (on Reddit).
Anyone who wants to face the flying newspapers and step runners before the release of ARC Raiders can do so in the current tech test, which will be playable until today, October 19, 2025. You don’t even have to register for this, as all curious players can participate. You can learn more about the ARC Raiders tech test here on MeinMMO: ARC Raiders: Server Slam is live – All about the last beta test
