By Every extraction shooter I’ve played so far has the same mechanics and the same gameplay experience.
You jump in, run around gathering loot, do some PVP to kill other players, and then extract with your loot.
Don’t get me wrong, this is fun. But after a while, it gets repetitive and boring.
Active Matter feels like the antidote to that extraction shooter virus, which offers a much more engaging, challenging, and immersive experience.
After spending many hours in the game, I’m convinced that Active Matter is a game that will redefine what extraction shooters are meant to be.
But is Active Matter worth playing right now? Yes, but it depends. Here’s why.
What Is Active Matter?
Active Matter is a new extraction shooter game developed by Gaijin Entertainment, the same developers behind games like War Thunder.
In Active Matter, you play as a clone in charge of going to an anomalous dark zone to retrieve objects for a secret agency. This dark zone is filled with strange, gravity-defying anomalies, creatures, and dangers. Not to mention other players who are out to get hold of your loot.
Active Matter has the same mechanics as every other extraction shooter out there. You can buy guns, armor, and gear from a shop. Loot anything and everything in the dark zone. Come back to your base to sell that loot and make a profit.
However, Active Matter has a dark zone that makes the entire game feel more unique and interesting.
STALKER + Tarkov?
Active Matter is like a combination of STALKER and Escape From Tarkov. It takes the best features from both games and combines them into one.
Each map in Active Matter has both AI enemies and real players. Unlike other extraction shooters, the AI enemies in this game are very challenging and intelligent. In fact, these AI monsters were much harder to deal with than real players, in my experience.
The variety of these AI monsters caught me by surprise. Some of these monsters disguise themselves as flower bushes. You’ll have a hard time identifying them while exploring.
Some monsters pretend to be like statues, but the moment you look away from them, they come after you and then freeze again when you look at them. Kind of like those weeping angel statues from Doctor Who.
There are also various moving anomalies, undead soldiers, gun-totting tree-like monsters, and various other types of enemies in Active Matter that are out to get you wherever you go.
These monsters make the game quite challenging to play, especially when playing solo, because these enemies are much harder to kill. They will hear your gunshots and come looking for you. If you brush up against a bush or a tree, they will come after you. They will even camp near the extraction points to get you in the last minute.
The enemy AI design of this game is impressive. Other extraction shooters can learn a lot from this game.
Immersive Atmosphere
The environments in Active Matter feel dark, and it captures the mood of an apocalyptic dark zone quite effectively.
Each raid in the game feels different as there’s always some random anomaly or monster coming out of nowhere. The gloomy weather, decaying vegetation, and the moody color tones made it feel much more immersive than even any of the STALKER game I’ve played before.
Active Matter takes quite a bit of inspiration from STALKER and improved upon some of the mechanics from those games as well.
One of the most unique experiences in the game is the gravity anomalies. These are mind-bending distortions in the map that defy gravity. It’s like Inception but much more trippier.
You can walk straight into these gravity anomalies, and as soon as you step in, the whole perspective shifts, and when you look back, you’ll see the entire map upside-down.
The first time I experienced this, it was mind-blowing to me.
Good Variety Of Maps
Each map in Active Matter feels different. It doesn’t feel like a copy and paste.
There are 10 different maps in the game right now in early access. These maps are small but densely packed with many points of interests (POIs) and unique locations to explore.
These maps also have variations with harder difficulties. For example, some maps have a version called “Overgrowth”, which features more AI monsters. Some maps have more “Distortions”, some have battle-royale style shrinking zones, and some even take place at night.
You can also play PVE-only versions of these maps. There a small toggle in the map selection menu that allows you to enable this and it gives you the entire map to yourself. It’s limited to 25 raids but refreshes daily.
As a solo player, I really appreciate this feature. It’s the perfect way to do some chill PVE raids without having to deal with PVP with other players. Or sometimes even to make some money to buy better gear.
Weapons and Gunplay
Even though it’s not the most impressive I’ve seen, the weapons and gunplay in Active Matter are pretty decent.
It has your usual AR, SMG, Marksman, and Pistol weapons with attachments. You also deal with magazines and have to load ammo manually, like in Tarkov. Weapon customization, however, is fairly limited right now and needs a lot of work.
The gunplay is still a bit rough around the edges. Especially the weapon animations feel a bit janky at times, like when interacting with objects in the world and reloading.
The FPS view looks similar to a bodycam-style view, which I liked. But I’m not sure if that’s what the developers were going for or whether that was the side-effect of the game engine they’re using.
Nonetheless, I hope they build upon that because that bodycam view makes the game even more intense.
Performance
Even though the game is still in early access, Active Matter feels quite polished. I went into the game expecting performance issues, crashes, and bugs. But I’m yet to experience a single issue in the game.
Given my mid-tier i5 12th gen, RTX 4060 build, the game performed admirably at over 80FPS at high graphics settings with DLSS turned on.
Active Matter doesn’t appear to be using Unreal Engine, and it seems to be running on Gaijin’s own game engine, which utilizes DirectX 11. That’s the main reason why the game runs so smoothly. And at first glance, I could’ve sworn it was an Unreal Engine 5 game because it looks that good.
Things I’d Like To See Improved
As much as I enjoyed Active Matter, there are still quite a few things I would like to see improved in the game. Since the game is in early access, there’s always room to improve.
Revamped UI
The user interface of this game is horrendous. The design feels like an Excel spreadsheet, and navigating different parts of the menu is a nightmare.
Even certain actions, such as dragging and dropping, in the menu don’t work properly. I know the UI is usually the last thing the developers work on, but this UI needs to be heavily improved if they want to keep the current players around until full release.
Monster Rebalancing
AI monsters in the game need to be balanced. Every time I fire a gun or go near a single monster, they start rushing me as a group. If it’s a building, every single one of the monsters in that entire building will come at me all at once.
This happened to me every single time, even when I tried to go around them without making any noise.
Some of the enemies, like the Weeping Angel-style statues, are impossible to kill without a specific weapon. For example, the only thing that kills those statues is grenades. If you don’t have a grenade, you’re dead.
Better Shop & Gunsmith
A gunsmith for weapon modifications doesn’t really exist in the game menu right now. You have to click on a weapon and go to modifications to customize it. And that menu is still very limited.
The shop/market in the game is also a bit chaotic. Buying gear and ammo for each raid needs to be simplified to help players save time.
There’s no option to sell the items you loot from the dark zone. Instead, you refine them. This gives you a random amount of in-game credits. As a result, you have no idea which items are worth looting when out exploring.
Animation Improvements
The weapon animations, running animations, reload animations, and animations for interacting with objects also need to be improved.
Is Active Matter Worth Buying?
Right now, I’m playing three different extraction shooters in rotation, and the one I enjoy the most is Active Matter. It’s tough and challenging to play, but with some improvements in the future, it will be a solid extraction shooter to compete with even the biggest games out there.
Active Matter is still in early access. You can only buy and download the game from Gaijin’s own website. The game is heading to Steam in 2026. Until then, you can play the game by buying an early access package. The basic package costs about $30 and it comes with some goodies.
The developers mentioned wipes during the development of the game. So these packages offer some stuff for you to get a jump-start after those inventory wipes.
Active Matter has what it takes to be a great game. If the developer stays true to this core vision and approaches monetization without pay-to-win or excessive greed, this will be one of the best games when it officially releases in 2026.
