Arena Breakout: Infinite Review

It’s been said by many, including almost everyone I game with, that Escape from Tarkov would be an amazing game if it wasn’t for its developers. The title has all of the makings of a genuinely fantastic shooter: grounded gunplay, great maps, a huge variety of realistic weapons, and an addictive progression system.

However, Battlestate Games perpetually makes hairbrained design decisions. They continually rebalance their title’s arsenal to suit the whims of Twitch streamers, add “realistic” features that make it harder to play the game casually, and find themselves involved in stupid controversies every few months. Arena Breakout: Infinite’s developers aren’t perfect, but by copying Escape from Tarkov and nixing most of its unnecessary mechanics, they’ve proved that extraction shooters can be both authentic and enjoyable.

If imitation is the finest form of flattery, Escape from Tarkov’s developers should be belauded by Morefun Studios’ riff on their genre-defining title. That’s because Arena Breakout: Infinite isn’t just a copy of the now-staple of the genre. It’s an almost code-for-code clone that shares its concept, gameplay loop, and even a lion’s share of its UI elements. In the extraction shooter that’s developed by a company owned by everyone’s favourite Chinese overlords, you play as a no-name mercenary who is dropped into a vaguely Eastern European-themed country and tasked with looting it dry. You do this by going on 30-minute-long raids in five distinct maps, all of which are filled with both hostile AIs and equally hostile players. You can bring whatever gear you want into a mission. But if you die in the game, you lose everything besides what’s in a 2x1 case. If you make it to an extraction point, though, you’ll be able to sell whatever you found to buy better gear for your next raid.

It’s that simplistic gameplay loop that makes all extraction shooters, including Arena Breakout: Infinite, so addictive. They’re easy to understand, involve more risk than a round of team deathmatch, and provide a great adrenaline kick during what would otherwise be mundane firefights. Arena Breakout: Infinite, for better or worse, doesn’t do anything to change that. It is, at its core, a slightly more polished iteration of a genre that’s existed for at least a decade. Its unique selling point is two-fold, however. First and foremost, Arena Breakout: Infinite is free-to-play. The title started out as a mobile game, and was only recently-ish remade for PC. That means you don’t need to put any money down to see if the game is for you. You’re encouraged to spend real cash on its expected assortment of micro-transactions, but you don’t have to. There’s an in-game store with two different forms of currency, multiple battle pass-esque checklists to work through, and even a premium monthly subscription that gives you access to a bigger secured container and stash for you to put your looted goodies in. None of these things give players who purchase them a significant advantage over players who don’t, though. They’re no worse, or better, than what’s present in Call of Duty, Fortnite, or any other mass-market shooter.

And being like Call of Duty is Arena Breakout: Infinite’s other attraction. Unlike the oft-mentioned Escape from Tarkov, Arena Breakout: Infinite is made to be played casually. You don’t have to wait around for a real-life hour for your in-game character to heal if you don’t make it out of a raid, it’s all but impossible to run out of in-game currency to buy equipment, and you’re even automatically put into a squad of randoms every time you load into a raid. You can also quickly equip your character with preset loadouts, and purchase any piece of equipment without slogging through a progression system. Even though there’s plenty of depth to Arena Breakout: Infinite’s gameplay, you don’t have to worry about it unless you want to. You can kill anyone you come across just by shooting at them regardless of what type of ammo you’re using, and if you take a few hits during a firefight, you can patch your wounds provided you have some sort of first aid kit in your inventory. 

Just to reiterate, Arena Breakout: Infinite does have the complexity necessary for it to be enjoyable long-term. There’s a huge arsenal of weapons to pick from, a leveling system with meaningful rewards, and a lot of nuance once you get into upper-level play. If you’re the type of person to only play for a couple of hours a week, though, you can simply select a pre-created loadout load into a match, and still have fun. Arena Breakout: Infinite’s core shooting and movement mechanics are solid and its maps are laid out well, so keeping it simple will still allow you to have fun. The game’s visuals are decent, too, and it runs well on older PCs.

So even though Arena Breakout: Infinite isn’t quite as “hardcore” as the likes of Escape from Tarkov, it’s ultimately a much more enjoyable experience for the vast majority of players. If you install the title, you have to deal with its relatively unobtrusive microtransactions. You also have to realise that you’re supporting a legally grey development practice, given just how much of Arena Breakout: Infinite is a direct rip-off of other titles. However, in 2025, that’s all par for the course when it comes to mass-market video games. What isn’t is that you’ll get to enjoy a good game in return for whatever Tencent is doing with your data. Although it isn’t all that different from the games you likely play already, it is simpler, and plays it safe with genre conventions. It’s made for people who can’t devote their lives to a hobby, while offering the same overall experience.