Arc Raiders adding Legendary guns aimed at PvP is "completely possible," but Embark bans any "one-shot" kills: "I think that gameplay is deeply boring"

Arc Raiders raider in a pilot helmet looks at the camera in a sunlit forest
(Image credit: Embark Studios)

The 2026 roadmap has already brought considerable change to Arc Raiders, bringing an invasion of birds, more modes, and two new Epic augments. In an interview with Embark Studios, we raised the question of creating another set of weapons, to continue ramping up the extraction shooter, and apparently it's not out of the realm of possibility.

"I think that's completely possible," Virgil Watkins, design lead on Arc Raiders, tells GamesRadar+ on the possibility of getting legendary guns. "But the way guns are relative to each other, that's where we have to be quite careful, and that's why we deliberately did things like that with the Hullcracker and the Equalizer."

Headwinds - Against the Odds | ARC Raiders - YouTube Headwinds - Against the Odds | ARC Raiders - YouTube
Watch On

He definitely has a point. One-shotting gets old fast, and you can create a hierarchy that punishes those who don’t play as much without meaning to if the balance is off kilter too much.

"If we were to do something that is substantially stronger in PvP, it needs to come with the appropriate price tag, running costs, risk," he adds. "I'm not in any way against players having that spike in power and feeling very cool for a moment. But it can't be like, I unlocked this thing and now I just win fights."

He gives an example of the heavy shield during Tech Test 2, where it made people more or less unstoppable for a considerable length of time. If such power is attainable, it needs to be quite restrained. For now, the Arc Raiders playerbase isn't calling out for such things, but who knows where we’ll be later in the year.

Arc Raiders players have found a real-life Stella Montis in Italy, and they're leaving hilarious reviews: "The Shredders are a bit of a nuisance"

Anthony McGlynn
Contributing Writer

Anthony is an Irish entertainment and games journalist, now based in Glasgow. He previously served as Senior Anime Writer at Dexerto and News Editor at The Digital Fix, on top of providing work for Variety, IGN, Den of Geek, PC Gamer, and many more. Besides Studio Ghibli, horror movies, and The Muppets, he enjoys action-RPGs, heavy metal, and pro-wrestling. He interviewed Animal once, not that he won’t stop going on about it or anything.

You must confirm your public display name before commenting

Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.