Arc Raiders devs tortured each other during playtests, at one point juicing Arc into unstoppable Elden Ring bosses: "All of a sudden you're playing a Souls game"

It sounds like Arc Raiders developers should have been more worried about each other than monstrous Arc in the PvPvE game's playtesting phase, according to Embark Studios production director Caio Braga.

He explained during his Game Developers Conference 2026 panel When Your AAA Game Isn't Fun: The ARC Raiders Story of Starting Over with Intent, attended by GamesRadar+. It seems that playtesting Arc Raiders developers couldn't stand when one production faction's idea outshone another, so they solemnly initiated "the playtest battles."

"We had this autonomy that everyone in the team could do what they believe the game was – and each one of them believe in something different, of course," Braga said. "And they have playtests. As I say, playtests are very important for us. So we have a thing I call 'the playtest battles' in the team, and every playtest would be playing one of those different things in a certain way."

He explains with an example: "Our weapon team really wanted the weapons to feel amazing, right? So, you go to playtest, melt Arc like butter, kill them. They'll explode, and all the physics that you see in the game – it was super amazing. Next playtest, the Arc team was super upset that all their effort on the [enemy] AI were putting, basically, to the ground with weapons. So, they tuned the Arc, and, all of a sudden you're playing a Souls game, and your weapons mean nothing." An interesting balance adjustment, to be sure.

"We were doing that on a daily basis," Braga admits. The devs fought like this over the game's soul for years, before the team was ultimately cut substantially to focus on the Arc Raiders we know today.

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