It seems like the following is indeed interesting, yet I’ve never ever experienced Arc Raiders myself! Have you? ^^
But often, players are just talking. A YouTube video called The Humans of Arc Raiders, inspired by the photographer who interviews strangers in New York City, includes conversations with randomly encountered players. They talk about family struggles, work lives, depression, autism and, in one case, a lung collapse. In one conversation, a heavily armed player in green armour named Poopy candidly asks another raider: "What’s it like having kids, dude?”
When I first jumped into Arc Raiders, I found a dichotomy on the topside, where birds sing and plants thrive among the carcasses of downed machines. The more I wandered around this 1970s-style retro-future setting, the more I bumped into other humans, many of whom offered help, such as medical supplies. Mostly we snuck around and battled robots together. It was tense at times, sometimes scary, but often relaxing.
In one session, I encountered another player with a British accent who was also new to the game. "Have you been killed by another person yet?” he asked me, as we explored a burst concrete dam complex. "Because every person I’ve met has been friendly,” he added. “No one kills each other.”
Source [web-archive]
I used to Play a lot of Team Fortress 2. Like thousands of hours over 8ish years. It was the only multiplayer game i played. I would just hop on and talk to people and it was great. Aroumd christmas, people would send around gifts. At the time, i wasn’t a big fan of christmas, because i didn’t have nephews or kids yet and it seemed kinda poimtless, so i would usually just play the game, thinking maybe there would be people online who are lonely around the holidays. I used to work in a bar around holidays, it’s brutal.
So i lived in a bubble of positivity for quite some time. Going back to games like Overwatch and CoD in the pandemic was pretty brutal.