Embark explained the long development of its extraction shooter ARC Raiders. According to CEO Patrick Söderlund, the project, which was originally planned as a PvE shooter with an emphasis on teamwork, has been seriously reworked.
After the announcement of ARC Raiders in 2021, the project went silent for a long time. A significant update and a new trailer appeared only at Gamescom-2024. As it turned out, the development team faced a fundamental problem: the original concept was simply boring.
We loved every aspect of what we were trying to create. But after quite some time, we came to the conclusion: «Guys, the game is just boring».
To remedy the situation, Embark Studios decided to introduce PvPvE elements — a mixture of PvP and PvE, where players not only fight AI, but also compete with each other for resources.
This added high stakes and a competitive element, as the developers noted. Recent playtests have shown that the model change was successful.
ARC Raiders will be released on October 30 on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.