Arc Raiders studio Embark may have finally squished the duplication bugs infesting the extraction shooter for months with its recent patch, though cheaters are already trying to figure out how to raise the dead. Some people can't help themselves.

"Success on stopping the dupers... for now," says one Reddit user in a popular thread in the Arc Raiders subreddit, sharing a screenshot from "one of the dupe discords I'm spying in," in which a user announces that they're suspending sales of their Arc Raiders dupe tool that utilizes Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). This particular approach to duping seems to have been addressed by what Arc Raiders community lead Ossen referred to as "a fix for some instances of duplication exploits" in notes for Embark's June 23 Store Update 1.34.0.

Embark also addressed Arc Raiders' apparently endless parade of duplication glitches leading players to infinite ammo, rubber ducks, and debauchery in its June 16 patch that aimed to bolster Denuvo Anti-Cheat. The developer wrote at the time, "We've been focusing on addressing item duplication and taking strict measures against those involved. This means carefully detecting incidents, addressing them directly, and building safeguards to prevent them from happening in the future."

The developer sounds serious – but we've heard it all before. Embark has been struggling to fly swat all of Arc Raiders' duplication glitches for as long as they've been annoyingly buzzing around… which feels like forever. Law-abiding Arc Raiders players are understandably tired. As soon as one dupe glitch goes down, it seems another sprouts up right where it fell.

But this time, cheaters at least seem to be intimidated by Embark's dupe fix. In the screenshot the aforementioned Reddit user posted, the dupe exploiter calls their new attempts to circumvent Embark "a long shot," and they admit, "To be completely transparent, this one is a bit tricky."

The cheater continues to say it'll be "really complex" to develop a new, working dupe tool, and they seem really upset. That's great!

Arc Raiders preparing new kernel-level anti-cheat to blast cheaters out of the sky and "sharpen both detection and precision."

Friendship-making-slash-ruining sim Arc Raiders is a big deal, that much we knew, but the extraction shooter has now surpassed 16 million copies sold. So Embark Studios is focusing on "reactivating" those raiders like robot-hunting sleeper agents, while the rest of the team makes two new mysterious games.

Publisher Nexon announced the sales milestone in its latest earnings report. The hit shooter might have come out and gone massively viral last year, but it's got legs fit for a marathon since Arc Raiders sold another 4.6 million units during the first three months of the year. More recently, its lifetime total reached 16 million copies.

"Extraordinary worldwide sales have made Arc Raiders the most successful new product release in company history, and demonstrated that Nexon can deliver games at scale across global markets," the publisher brags. "Six months after the launch, and driven by a steady stream of content updates, Arc Raiders surpassed 16 million unit sales worldwide and consistently ranked among the top games on Steam’s most-played chart. More than half of the active players have already spent over 100 hours in the game, totaling more than 1.5 billion hours - an exceptionally high level of engagement."

Nexon also notes how Embark Studios is working to keep the momentum going with the Frozen Trail update, coming in October. While that might seem too far out to feed the millions of players sustaining a live service game, Embark stressed the update would address long-term concerns and make more "transformative" changes.

The publisher itself reckons everything coming with The Frozen Trail - from new cosmetics to the largest map yet - will be "great for reactivating users who finished the original game, and for attracting all-new players." I wonder what the activation code is.

Then, buried way at the bottom of the financial report in a list of upcoming Nexon games, we get a small glimpse into the developer's future. "From Embark Studios: Two new games in the early stage of development." That's the only crumb of information we have about the two projects, but after how explosively successful Arc Raiders became, anything the dev touches should be worth keeping an eye on.

Arc Raiders will soon let you keep blueprints and buy more stash space because "very few of you are going on the Expedition"

Arc Raiders and The Finals developer Embark Studios says it has "mutually agreed to part ways" with CCO Rob Runesson after allegations that he engaged in misconduct with a The Finals streamer. Runesson was one of the numerous Dice veterans who co-founded Embark Studios. The studio says an external legal investigation "did not substantiate the allegations," but adds that "we found the situation unsustainable."

Those allegations were made public last month, when they were read on Twitch by The Finals streamer Balise, as IGN reports. The allegations come from an anonymous source who said that they had been in contact with another streamer of The Finals. This streamer is said to have developed a relationship with Runesson, but grew increasingly uncomfortable with that relationship as Runesson allegedly started requesting escalating sexual favors.

This streamer allegedly felt that they could not voice their concerns because their livelihood on Twitch was connected to Runesson's promotion of their streams. The allegations go on to suggest that they eventually raised their concerns directly with an Embark community lead, but did not receive confirmation of any action being taken.

"Our leadership team was recently made aware of allegations against an Embark employee," the company says in a statement to IGN. "We take these matters seriously, and as a part of our process for addressing any types of allegations, we immediately hired a law firm to conduct an external investigation. The investigation did not substantiate the allegations, but we found the situation unsustainable and mutually agreed to part ways with Rob."

I liked Arc Raiders well enough, icky associations with AI notwithstanding. I mainly play it for work purposes, but occasionally dip in of my own accord when I have a chance, shooting at robots with friends and filling my pockets with damp trash.

The problem is, recently Arc's been a bit too… pliant. Toothless. Five games in a row yesterday, and not a single real peril encountered, barely a bullet fired. The robots are oblivious, and the humans tip their hats in casual greeting as I pass them by in the street. I doubt this is the intended experience, and clearly, something needs to change – and a reboot to the robot forces seems like the obvious place to begin.

Arc, the periled rangers sing!

At time of writing, Arc Raiders has gone through three distinct eras. First you had the Age of Chaos, those first weeks where everybody was still learning the rules, and it was all thrillingly unpredictable. Nobody really understood the nuances, plus we were all mostly low level and still aspiring to better things, so all the loot had real value. Then came the Age of War – players worked out how to handle the robots, and so the only interesting thing left was hunting players. This coincided in part with the Stella Montis map, and Arc went through its PvP era for a while. It was… rough, to say the least.

But now we're in the Age of Peace. When even hunting players has lost its spice, now the player base is largely just focused on mission completion and efficiency. There's very little point hunting other humans – you've probably got plenty of all the standard loot they're carrying, and the one unique blueprint or Wolfpack Grenade that would be worth fighting them for is in their Safe Pocket where you can't get it, so what's even the point? I used to be terrified of other players in Arc, but now I barely register their presence. Getting killed by one feels like weird behaviour now, something that barely inconveniences me and doesn't help them. Oh no, I lost my broken bicycle pump. Say it ain't so.

Some of this is just the inevitable result of playing a game into the endgame – but then again, stagnation is not really supposed to happen in these theoretically endless live service games. And the playerbase seems to have firmly decided that this is a PvE game, so Arc Raiders needs to embrace that, and that means making all the robots an actual challenge again.

We're apparently getting a new robot enemy with the Arc Raiders Shrouded Sky update, but I doubt that'll be enough to fix the issue. It's interesting, sure, but if Arc Raiders is a PvE game in which the P is proudly pissing on the E from a great height, then a general enhancement for the robotic forces seems in order. Personally, I'd do it by increasing their numbers – going back to Helldivers 2 recently taught me that holding off huge swathes of enemies until you're overrun continues to be a great time, and even stealthing around Arc's forces would be much more tense if they're far more omnipresent.

Arc Raiders is a good game, but it's clearly reached a bit of a plateau as the game struggles to outpace the community's skill level and provide a constant drip feed of new content to pit them against. Giving all their robots a much-needed kick up the exhaust port feels like the next natural step. It's time to fear the bots again.

Check out our list of the best shooter games for more run-and-gun fun!

If you've played Arc Raiders for any length of time, you've visited Stella Montis, the hidden lab buried in the mountains, where whatever is so unspeakable, it had to be abandoned and all entrances locked. You can actually find it in real life, too, but this version is much less exciting. Even still, players are leaving charming reviews, which hopefully won't confuse other potential visitors too much.

The Hotel Stella Montis sits in the Autonomous Province of Trento, in northern Italy, and it's a "great place," according to a reviewer on Google who recommends going alone. "Any group bigger than two has a very high chance of meeting rats in the lobby. Hotel has a medical section which is a hot spot for dead bodies."

Rats? Bodies? Oh my. "Everything is great, really," starts another review – OK, maybe it's not so bad. "The only issue is that players sometimes spawn just ten meters away from me." That's really not optimal. If you're on vacation somewhere like here, it's probably because you want some seclusion in the beautiful Italian countryside, ideally without anybody spawning anywhere close.

"The people there are very nice, nobody shoots, and occasionally someone even comes by with a flute. However, the Shredders are a bit of a nuisance," says a third. "Don't shoot!"

I should imagine not being shot is a pretty standard requirement for accommodation of any kind, really. The four-star establishment offers gorgeous views of the Fassa Valley in addition to a spa and gym, restaurant and all the other appropriate amenities. It's open all year 'round, but there are certain restrictions around when you can arrive and depart depending on the month.

Nobody employed there has commented publicly on fans of Embark's extraction shooter lighting up their ratings. The feedback is all glowing, though, and even if it's for a different Stella Montis, I'm sure the place will take the free publicity. Let's just hope the reviews don't put any unknowing travelers off from the place.

Streamer Ninja says 99% of Arc Raiders players "aren't even coming close to running into a fraction of the amount of cheaters" he is, which is why his complaints are "falling on deaf ears"

In a time when much of the games industry is struggling, Arc Raiders once again shows it's still entirely possible to attract a healthy audience. According to analysts, the multiplayer shooter has already surpassed 12 million copies sold, peaking at over 3 million daily active players.

This information comes from Rhys Elliot, head of market analysis at Alinea Analytics. The outfit estimates that across PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, Arc Raiders just crossed the 12 million copies mark, hitting the benchmark this past weekend.

What's more, the active player-count apparently peaked at around 3.2 million on January 4, 2026, again accounting for all available platforms. Those are some hefty numbers for a brand new IP in a difficult genre like the extraction shooter space, even with the caveat of former Battlefield devs being among the dev team.

So ARC Raiders passed 12M copies sold over the weekend (Alinea estimates). Yesterday was its biggest day ever by DAUs (3.2M).Daily copies sold started to stabilise by early Dec, but a well-timed 20% discount across all platforms – and the holiday boost – reversed that.What a ride.

— @superhys.bsky.social (@superhys.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-01-05T17:23:31.746Z

Elliot states that it looked like Arc Raiders might plateau in December. Since the game launched late October, this would've been a logical and perfectly acceptable place for sales to stall a little, as review buzz and initial hype wanes and other games take the spotlight.

But, as he points out, a holiday discount helped keep players dropping in. "What a ride," he opines.

It helps, too, that Embark launched a massive update, Cold Snap, that put a chill in the air over the festive season, demonstrating the kind of vibrancy people can expect if they choose to stick around. Arc Raiders is evolving at considerable pace.

The devs just confirmed "aggression-based matchmaking" is now well and truly happening, and the roadmap expands ever onward. Whatever's coming next for the human-versus-robots skirmish, there are going to be plenty of players around to check it out.

Arc Raiders legend dedicated to collecting rubber ducks has now amassed an army of 4,200 of them with no end in sight

You tend to need your guns in Arc Raiders, what with the imminent threat of both giant robots and other people who want your loot and supplies. An irritating glitch is preventing some players from taking out their weapons, and it’s purportedly becoming more widespread.

A clip from Richard Tyler 'Ninja' Blevins demonstrates the issue, as he grapples into an active firefight only to realize he can’t take out his gun. He's subsequently downed, while trying to explain to his comrades on voice chat what's happening, all the while without any kind of offensive tool at his disposal.

It's a frustrating-looking moment, shared by esports reporter Jake Lucky, who states that streamer Nadeshot has encountered the same problem. A slew of others then report the same or similar in the replies, many of whom thought they’d had a uniquely bad time.

"Yeah, sadly it happens quite a lot. Nothing worse than trying to engage and just... standing there helpless. Hope they patch it soon," says one response. "Yuppp, was happening to me too yesterday, thought I was losing it for real," states another.

"This happened to me. I could pull out my main gun and raider tool, but not my second gun," a third adds. As yet, no further clips have been doing the rounds, however it's not unlikely we'll see more emerge as people acknowledge the glitch and it becomes more repeatable. Embark Studios hasn't commented yet, but should this remain so common or become even more so, you can expect it to be addressed in short order.

Arc Raiders left with a grand question after sacrificing their characters for light Expedition loot: "Was it worth it?"

Few games have had a better year than Arc Raiders. After months of anticipation from open betas, the shooter from Embark Studios arrived in October to widespread acclaim. As such, with the end of the year approaching, executive producer Aleksander Grondal has taken some time to address the rousing reception and announce a little gift to players.

"Internally, we were having a blast playing [Arc Raiders] before release, and your reaction to the tech test in April gave us an inkling of what was to come," he says. "What we didn't count on was the sheer scale of love and passion you guys were going to show this game."

He mentions the devs at Embark "pour our hearts" into the project, and players are "doing the same." The path here was tricky, as the version we're playing is actually a rework of an earlier iteration, first revealed in 2021, that was more co-op focused. Needless to say, the relief around the company when their instincts were proven correct and people were really digging this direction must’ve been powerful.

"The work is just beginning," he says, doubling down on prior sentiment about building infrastructure that lasts. "We're here for the long-term, to build a game that continues to excite and surprise - we hope you stick around for the journey!"

Grondal teases there's "so much show you" for 2026, before revealing that everyone is getting 1,000 Raider Tokens simply for logging in. Just make sure you do so before the Cold Snap event finishes on January 13.

A fine way to round out an incredible launch for what’s comfortably one of 2025's biggest and best games. Founded by former Battlefield developers. Embark had its work cut out competing against Battlefield 6 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, and it managed to stand tall, even winning Best Multiplayer Game at The Game Awards. Onwards and upwards!

Arc Raiders players down each other a "surprisingly low" amount, Embark lead says, who admits the dev team are "way worse people than the community."

The Arc Raiders Cold Snap event brought with it a substantial update this week, adding in features and fine-tuning various gameplay elements. We've now swiftly had another, smaller patch, this time fixing blueprint drops that’d become slightly too charitable.

The Arc Raiders 1.7.2 update is now live, and chief among the bullet points is another tweak to schematics you can earn. "Blueprint drop rates have been slightly lowered, but are still higher overall than before the 1.7.0 update," read the patch notes.

Of course, the first thing here is I hope everyone enjoyed the heightened amount of blueprints that were appearing while it lasted. No stats are given, but it definitely seems like you could get some legendary equipment noticeably quicker than Embark Studios intended.

Which brings us onto the second: what's the rate now? Still higher than previously, taking the edge off the grind if you've been trying to get a particular weapon but haven't been able to, whether because of limited playing time or some real bad luck, or both.

"Even with them being absurdly high I still never found a Tempest blueprint, week four of spamming night raids for that sucker," reads one comment on Reddit. "We knew it was too good to be true!" exclaims another.

"I think they need to find the right amount where it's not boring to get blueprints but still manageable for players who reset to get their collection back in a reasonable time and they're figuring that out right now," adds another.

They're referencing the Expedition function, where players can restart their Raider from scratch, near enough. Being as popular as it is, there are plenty of Arc Raiders players ready to build another character in the shooter, to try different playstyles and glean other rewards.

Embark is likely trying to balance multiple factors in the drops, without making them too easy or a chore. Whether they've found the right cadence is up to players to decide. The best time to look for legendaries was yesterday, the second best time is now - get to it.

Arc Raiders players down each other a "surprisingly low" amount, Embark lead says, who admits the dev team are "way worse people than the community"

Get your winter coats on, because there's a bit of snow coming to Arc Raiders. Well, that's an understatement; it's actually a whole lot of snow, as the Arc Raiders Cold Snap event is about to kick off, bringing freezing conditions, fresh challenges, and the option of starting your raider over to unlock some special rewards.

First things first: the weather. The Arc Raiders Cold Snap is exactly as it sounds, cold and icy. Four of the current maps - Buried City, Dam Battlegrounds, The Blue Gate, and Spaceport - are being hit by this blizzard, and staying out too long is hazardous to your health. Besides minimizing time in the snowstorm, you’ll want to make sure you have appropriate items to heal and defend yourself and your squad in case you feel the freeze. For more, check out our Arc Raiders Frostbite guide.

There are two events to engage in while wandering the winter wonderland: Flickering Flames and Candleberry Banquet. The first is described as "an act of endurance and patience," and offers 25 levels of rewards. The second is a collectibles challenge - scattered throughout the typical treasure are candleberries, and piecing them together gets you a delicious banquet.

Collecting the candleberries contributes to Flickering Flames, making it worthwhile to engage in the two of them at once. On top of these, there's the option of a reset, through the Expedition Project. Among the newer loot are pieces of a caravan. Put it together, and you can then restart with a new raider and a new story.

While the character is given a do-over, there are "exclusive buffs, advantages and rewards that carry over." If any of this sounds appealing, these events kick off on Tuesday, December 16, at 9:30 am GMT/4:30 am EST/ 1:30 am PST, and run until Tuesday, January 13.

Arc Raiders devs are "aware" of problems in matchmaking right now, and Embark Studios is working on a fix: "Our team is investigating."

There are always foibles with maintaining a game like Arc Raiders, and unfortunately some issues lay in matchmaking right now. But fear not, if you're a player who's been having these problems, Embark Studios is very aware, and some form of hotfix is in the offing.

As much was announced by Ossen Julia, the community lead for Arc Raiders, on the game's official Discord server. "We're aware that matchmaking errors are happening again for some players," Julia writes. "Our team is investigating and we'll share updates as soon as we can."

They don't specify what the problems are, but posts on Twitter state wait times are longer than normal at the moment. "Last few days has been two-to-three minute wait times for a match," says one user. "10-minute wait times, matches with only me in them at least twice now," another person tweets.

These queueing times aren't exactly long, but for a game that's been extremely smooth and consistent in getting players into matches and since launching in late October, it feels more galling. "I give it two-to-three minutes then I back out and re-queue. I also assumed it's 'cause I'm getting queued for the 'friendly' lobbies," reads another poster.

Even though re-queueing appears to solve the problem according to people's tweets, that's still an annoying inconvenience and a drain on what might be precious time to actually play the game. Arc Raiders has garnered a strong reception since coming out a month-and-a-half ago, but those players can easily go elsewhere. Thankfully, Embark is on the case, and remedies should be rolled out in short order.

Take a bow, Arc Raiders players: your degeneracy surprised even Embark, which didn't expect all the wallhacking – "We have to continuously find ways to waterproof the experience."

At one point during the development of hit shooter Arc Raiders, Embark Studios wanted to have big boss fights centred around pattern recognition in the same vein as Dark Souls or Monster Hunter, but the imposing robots that stalk the game's maps were far too unpredictable for that to work.

Arc Raiders' technical designer Nora Silow said as much in a docuseries about the making of the extraction shooter, which you can watch below. "A lot of design philosophies, especially with enemy design, are really difficult to pull off when you have these types of systems because it's so much about pattern recognition," she said.

For those out of the loop, pattern recognition in games is pretty much what the name implies. When you see a Dark Souls boss stretch their weapon in a specific way, let's say, you'll eventually realize they're charging up for a very particular spinning attack, and hopefully, you'll also in time realize how to counter it.

"That's what games like Dark Souls, like Monster Hunter kind of rely upon," Silow continued. "And we had this ambition to have boss fights in that same arena of Dark Souls, Monster Hunter, having all of that compelling pattern recognition."

But Embark soon realized the Arcs had far too many variables for those more scripted boss encounters to be viable. Pattern recognition works in games because the player knows that certain animations will lead to certain outcomes almost every single time, which doesn't really work if a scarab-y Arc is on a slope at an angle the developers didn't plan for or if there's another player firing from an unexpected angle.

Silow puts it succinctly: "You're not gonna have the pattern that you thought."

Arc Raiders players exploited the Hidden Bunker so hard that Embark has turned it off entirely

Like pretty much any game, the development of Arc Raiders wasn't a smooth ride. In fact, the entire PvE game that was shown off years ago was almost entirely scrapped in favor of the extraction shooter we have now, but developers at Embark Studios explain how failed ideas led to finding the fun.

"We spent the majority of our first year just building tools," founder and CEO Patrick Soderlund said in a new developer documentary about the making of one of 2025's biggest hits. "I also knew that we weren't going to get things right. We were going to make a ton of mistakes along the way and we had to plan for those mistakes, and kind of get ourselves in a cushion to be able to make those mistakes."

The Embark head explains it quite succinctly here: "Guess what? If you're trying to send people to Mars, you will crash a bunch of rockets. We crashed a bunch of rockets."

Technical designer Nora Silow remembers that one of the earliest concepts she worked on was a "four-legged little pouncing" dog that would run around the map. It's "long gone," of course, as are many other ideas.

Paul Greveson, senior technical artist, elaborated that "sometimes ideas written down on paper" don't hold up when implemented into the game itself. "It sounded really cool when we were talking about it, but actually, now, I'm just running around looking up all the time."

"Finding the fun isn't always a thing that you cannot just automatically say, 'We'll just do this and it will be fun'", executive producer Aleksander Grondal explained. "What you know is: you work and you put the thing in and it's not working like you want it to. So, then, you need to start reworking it and reiterating on it and maybe rethinking some of your initial assumptions… That comes from playing the game and playing around with what you've created."

Arc Raiders players mourn their beloved Arc killer, the Hullcracker, after Embark nerfs it into the pavement: "No idea why they'd do this"

Arc Raiders is an unstoppable force at this point, it seems, having just smashed its concurrent player record on Steam yet again for a third weekend in a row, despite competition from the newly released Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 and Escape from Tarkov 1.0.

Every weekend since its launch, Arc Raiders has broken its own record on Steam, with the latest concurrent player peak – set yesterday, November 16 – standing at 481,966 (thanks, SteamDB). That follows previous records of 354,836 on its first weekend and 462,488 on the one after.

That's impressive enough as it is, but it's even more so when you consider what a busy weekend we just had for new shooters. Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 launched on Friday, November 14, with the 1.0 release of tactical extraction shooter Escape from Tarkov arriving the following day.

Two shiny new shooters clearly weren't enough to drag fans away from Embark Studios' latest title, despite respectively being part of one of the most popular FPS series of all time, and a highly anticipated title that's been in early access for the better part of a decade.

All this is also overlooking Arc Raiders' player count on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. Embark hasn't shared those numbers, but there's no doubt that the latest Steam record only reflects one portion of the game's fanbase.

Arc Raiders' latest record comes days after Embark made changes to duo matchmaking and cosmetic prices, even if not everyone is completely satisfied with the newly reduced costs, with the prices of individual skins generally not altering much at all. On the whole, though, it's still a win for the players who'd been complaining about them.

Arc Raiders players are divided after Embark Studios nerfed a perk that everyone was gunning for, but don't worry, the devs are thinking about "adding a skill reset mechanic."

After Arc Raiders' 1.2.0 update dropped yesterday and nerfed one of the best Arc Raiders skills, developer Embark Studios has said that it's mulling over the possibility of letting players reset their skill tree progress.

Yesterday's update sent some players into a frenzy as the OP Security Breach perk got a decent nerf. For those not in the know, Security Breach let players unlock Security Lockers, the loot boxes that spawn in high-danger areas and dish out lots of goodies. The developer said it had to nerf the skill because lockers "were over-providing valuable items."

Of course, for some raiders this was great news: there wouldn't be a massive gulf between players with Security Breach and those without. For many others who were still grinding to get the skill, which is one of the last ones on the Survival tree, the nerf seemed like a slap in the face.

"Great, just unlocked it today. Perfect timing," the top-rated comment under a Reddit thread reads.

"I mean, fair enough, but im like 30 points into survival now," another player wrote.

"Damn missed all the cheese and now I get to level slower and find less loot cause I didn't have 12 hours to play a day," a third complained.

Embark wasted no time at all in responding to the backlash, though. In a Discord message reposted on the game's subreddit, community manager 'Ossen' said the team is "exploring the possibility of adding a skill reset mechanic" to appease raiders who sunk time into chasing Security Breach before this latest update. "Balancing is important for us and both overperforming and underperforming skills will be adjusted over time."

As Arc Raiders cuts skin prices, some players reckon Embark is still asking for too much on top of its $40 game: "This is still twice the price they showed in the beta tests"

Arc Raiders is finally here, following multiple delays, much to players' delight – but not all are pleased with the competitive third-person shooter's lack of duo queues.

Although you can queue with just one of your pals in Arc Raiders, you aren't actually joining a "duo" queue. You might be pitted against a trio of players instead of just two, making the experience much more difficult as you grapple to overcome the shooter's PvP with fewer teammates on your side. These missing duos have been a point of contention over the past couple of days, with online discussions highlighting as much.

Embark we are in desparate need of DUOS mode 🥲 from r/ArcRaiders

As one Reddit thread reads, "Embark [Studios], we are in desperate need of a duos mode." The poster then explains their position: "EMBARK, please make a duos mode, that's in my opinion the only thing this game is currently missing. I am really tired of playing against trios while I want to play with my friend." Comments see fellow fans agree, with one reading, "I'll even take duo-prioritization over a true duos mode."

They continue: "If the queue time is too long, sure, throw us into threes, but at least try to fill the whole lobby with other duos for a minute." Elsewhere, a separate post exclaims, "Please matchmake duos against duos…" Not everyone feels the same, however. As another thread reads, "Stop asking for duos only. This game was made PvPvE. It's meant to be stressful and outnumbered if you don't go in a group of three."

The frustrated fan goes on: "You don't see the solos asking for solos-only lobbies. Stop trying to make the game what you want and play it the way it's meant to be. Y'all are going to get your wish and duos added, then you're going to stop playing and have the player base split."

Surprisingly, they're not alone in this opinion. Another thread proves so, with its poster stating, "I'm a duo and I don't want duos."

arcraiders from r/ArcRaiders/comments/1olgdyr/im_a_duo_and_i_dont_want_duos

Why, though? "Adding a duo-only mode will lengthen the queue times and take away from the main game," they detail. "This game isn't meant to be a balanced team death match, and honestly, it's what makes this game so brilliant."

It seems the Arc Raiders community is split on this debacle – but it doesn't look to be negatively impacting the game's reception. Just check its very successful launch day and subsequent "Very Positive" review on Steam.

Our own Arc Raiders review describes the new Embark Studios shooter as boasting "the most memorable multiplayer experiences" of the year, so it's safe to say it's a banger. Here's hoping that, regardless, the duos issue is ironed out somehow in the future.

After backing Arc Raiders over Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 for GOTY, FPS legend Shroud says there should be different categories for multiplayer and single-player

New extraction shooter Arc Raiders is enjoying a particularly warm reception at the moment. Less than two weeks from launching fully, the game has managed to climb to another peak for concurrent players on Steam.

From SteamDB, over the weekend, Arc Raiders managed to accrue a massive 462,488 players at once. That is pushing towards half a million concurrently, leaving the previous record around the 300,000 mark completely in the dust, and surpassing Helldivers 2's all-time Steam record of 458,709.

Not only is the release from Embark Studios continuing to grow in players, viewership on streaming has been huge as well. According to Streams Charts, Arc Raiders was the most viewed launch of any game this year. Viewers on Twitch peaked at 374,333 for the weekend of launch, contributing to 35,618,301 of streams cumulatively watched.

These are massive numbers, especially when you consider that Arc Raiders is a fresh IP and only the second project from Embark, who previously put out free FPS The Finals. Like it has for many other games, Arc Raiders has leapfrogged The Finals in terms of community already, despite coming with a $40 price tag.

This is all before mentioning that Arc Raiders came out properly right after Battlefield 6 launched. Ironic given the dev team was founded by Battlefield alum, but they've created the ideal alternative for players who maybe aren’t so keen on the military FPS.

Not resting on their laurels, the devs have two other concepts in the wings as well, once support for Arc Raiders evens out. Should Embark be able to hold onto this momentum, Arc Raiders might be a game we're playing well into the future.

Arc Raiders already has an online market for blueprints, a rare one could cost you more than the game itself, and you might not even get to keep it

The much-anticipated Arc Raiders launched last week, but some players hoping to drop in on the extraction shooter have been left hanging. Suffering from success, the multiplayer game rocketed up the Steam charts, only for the servers to implode over the weekend, with Embark Studios now working to remedy the situation.

After launching to over 260,000 concurrent players on Steam, Arc Raiders only grew bigger in the days after, pushing out to a peak of 337,834. Impressive numbers for only the second game from the devs, but the infrastructure strained and the servers buckled.

Throughout Sunday, November 2, players posted about being unable to get in due to a game-wide crash. Embark has been working diligently to solve the problems, instituting some quick fixes in lieu of wider solutions.

"The team has implemented a login queue as a temporary measure in order to mitigate issues related to forming parties and using voice channels which will make your matchmaking longer than usual," says a post in the official Discord server. As you might imagine, it's been pretty intense there for the last while.

While unfortunate, this is often par for the course for online-only releases. A first-weekend surge is expected and hoped for, but although server slams and beta access gave some sense of buzz, data can only predict so much. Throw in a $40 price tag, a large contrast to Embark's last game The Finals being free-to-play, and there was uncertainty.

Considering Embark was founded by ex-Battlefield and Star Wars: Battlefront devs, the studio knows what it's about in handling all this. What's important now is the recovery, which is underway. If you're hoping to join the fray, exercise a little patience, and you'll get your chance.

Arc Raiders roadmap confirms new map Stella Montis, expanded quests, 2 new Arcs to fight in November, and a new Raider Deck battle pass for December.

Shortly before Arc Raiders launched, I caught up with Embark Studios founder and chief creative officer Stefan Strandberg. We mostly spoke about the developer's approach to making an extraction shooter – specifically, how Arc Raiders is the first game to truly understand the genre since Escape From Tarkov.

As our chat wrapped up, there was time for one last – crucially, quick – question. Truly believing it would be quick, I asked why Embark Studios didn't put enemy health bars in Arc Raiders. Some quick context: I hate seeing health bars in any game in which immersion is even somewhat valued. Every time a big red bar is slung over a character's head, it may as well be a flashing neon sign that reads "YOU ARE IN A GAME". But I digress: the point is, Strandberg is a passionate ally to the crusade against unnecessary UI. Like, really passionate.

No cheating

I'm a huge fan of the way Arc Raiders handles health. Even without health bars, you can see how much damage something's taken: the more you shoot a robot, for example, the more it will vomit thick black smoke, the more you'll see fire flickering through cracked armor plating, all while it physically falls apart. Damage is persistent, which means you can even see when one of the AI-controlled machines has been in a scrap with players – who could still be nearby, dead or alive.

When Arc Raiders was being developed as a purely PvE game, Strandberg says it did have health bars – along with hit indicators and damage numbers. "It's something you can autopilot to as a developer," he admits, before offering more validation than I can be trusted with.

"Our game has physical properties, and we are building really immersive, three-dimensional worlds," he explains. "We're asking players to lean in, listen, and really look at things. Everything is there. There are so many cues in the sound, in the VFX, in everything. So when you look at how your bullet travels, and it hits, it cascades, it has kinetics, those are qualities that just go away. If you put a damage number on top, or a health bar, that's redundant. Now you're playing the Excel sheet of a game! I'm like, why are we building these fantastic, 3D-simulated worlds if we're not supposed to appreciate them?"

By finding alternate ways to get that information across, Arc Raiders builds upon the immersion it fosters in other areas. Unlike many shooters – which often feel like barebones server browsers when you're not in a match – Arc Raiders goes to great lengths to foster liveliness in all areas. Ditching health bars may not seem like it plays a big part in that, but it does. It ensures that all of the time and effort spent making the world feel real isn't punctured by gamey-ness, subtly closing the gap between you and your character.

"At one point we just said 'we have to trust the players more,'" says Strandberg, recalling the decision to ditch that additional UI. "We have to trust in their own intuitive abilities to discern what's going on. And I think I would encourage more games to do this, because I'm not going to say it's lazy – there are lots of great games that have health bars – but I think there is equally something important about allowing players to play the game, and look into the game world, and see what's actually going on there."

"I'm really proud of us not having gone down that route," he adds. "There are some games that totally beat us on immersion, but you can see where we're going with this and it's something we're really proud of. We really do see how powerful it is when you start to remove odd elements where you get the answer served on a silver platter."

Why stop at Arc Raiders? If Strandberg had his way, the industry wouldn't. "To me, that's the future where every game should be going," he says, now running several minutes over his hard (and self-imposed) cut-off point for the interview. "Like, why are we building these realistic worlds? Why am I getting all the answers in a 2D format on top of 3D? I'm getting agitated!"

You and me both, Strandberg. You and me both.

We've rounded up the best battle royale games, but I'm afraid some of them have health bars...

Extraction shooters are a tough nut to crack. But where titans including Battlefield and Call of Duty have failed to make a dent, Arc Raiders – the latest game from The Finals developer Embark Studios – has blown the vault door open and scrambled away with the loot.

I've got a very high bar for the genre, thanks to years spent playing Escape from Tarkov, but a morning spent in Arc Raiders' tense post-apocalyptic raids reminds me of how Fortnite managed to bring PUBG's already-booming battle royale formula to a broader audience. We all know how that went. All of this is to say: Arc Raiders has the sauce, so I caught up with Stefan Strandberg, founder and chief creative officer of Embark Studios to hear how it was made.

Up and out

Speaking from that Escape from Tarkov headspace, I've always found that few extraction shooters are willing to fully commit to its formula.

In trying to bring the genre to the masses, studios often dial back the difficulty (losing the tension that makes going into raids so exciting), or take a hatchet to post-raid elements like crafting and stashes (losing the tension that makes leaving raids so exciting). These attempts often take the genre towards a more diluted, casual middle ground – even if nobody is there to play it.

Arc Raiders is far more accessible than Tarkov, but it doesn't lose that mean streak. I've killed – and been killed – in shootouts that have lasted just seconds, bled through my stash's gear like it's going out of style, and had my shit rocked by more of the game's AI-controlled robots than I'm willing to admit. Arc Raiders' broader appeal comes from its shinier chrome: brilliant narrative hooks, a gorgeous splash of retro futurism, and the sort of big budget polish you'd expect from far larger shooters.

It's a brilliant angle, though Embark Studios didn't stumble upon it by design. "We started with PvE and invested in that and co-op, hence all of our PvE enemies, but we soon realized that it didn't hold up," explains Strandberg, pointing to that lack of tension. The "stars were aligning" when the studio moved towards more of an extraction loop, iterating itself into a space which other developers would have killed to find first. Yet while Arc Raiders evolved into a more traditional extraction shooter, Strandberg and the team made a conscious effort to stay away from the genre's typical tone.

"The style and tone of this game was trying to take a step away from what was out there. Without mentioning any [other extraction shooters] there are certain tropes of 'drab military,'" grins Strandberg. "I have to care about this AK-47, but really I don't!"

In other areas, Embark Studios doubled down. Outside of raids, there's an RPG-like feel to Arc Raiders' progression, with skill trees, quests from vendors, and a base that can be upgraded with loot scavenged from forays outside. There's a real richness to the world, with many smaller parts making up the greater whole. Strandberg says it was important to give players "purpose" – why are they living underground? Where are the legions of killer robots coming from? What happened here?

"If you strip [Arc Raiders] down to its Excel sheet version, it's pure mechanics," he explains. "But mechanics don't feel like anything in isolation. So we've invested heavily in trying to justify the motives of our quest-givers, and embellishing that together with the world-building and layers of lore, so it's all there. To me, that's what makes it compelling. I hope that gets more players into this, because you can almost play it as a single-player game if you want. There's a story there, a world to uncover, and plans to expand upon it – that's something we're committed to. I think that's a natural progression that goes beyond what the formula is now."

Better with friends

During my first few matches, I played Arc Raiders like an absolute bastard. The sound of an explosion or gunshot sent me hurtling towards it in the hopes of catching and killing other squads, leading to tense sniper battles across rooftops and scrappy ambushes with my equally-bloodthirsty squad. Gunplay is fantastic – players are squishy and will drop to gunfire fairly quickly, but the third-person perspective prevents that tension veering too far into horror territory.

To my surprise, not shooting has its own charm. Whilst looting The Spaceport, another squad engaged us with voice comms and invited us to hang out for a little while – and if that doesn't crack your cold, cold heart, certain robots are phenomenally hard to defeat with just one squad.

Not killing-on-sight is something that Embark Studios has consciously tried to support. An emote wheel allows for communication alongside proximity chat, and even internally, there were a few different playstyles. Strandberg admits that while some developers embraced pacifism, others did the opposite. Surprisingly, the more co-operative side has survived Arc Raiders' first contact with players.

"I've been murdered in completely uncalled for ways, but I've also had friends – that I didn't know – come to save me in moments of great despair," says Strandberg, who recalls hearing a GDC talk about EVE Online that touched on the subject. "Someone saying hi by the coffee machine at the office is zero-risk, but saying hi in the darkness of space? That can create real strong bonds."

"I think it comes back to what we talked about earlier, about the presentation," he continues. "We have utmost respect for Tarkov, but both its PvP and PvE enemies are humanoids. It's harder with the treatment in that world to think that there are any friendlies nearby, whereas in our world, the mutual enemy of the AI sort of opens the door a little bit more. When you see someone get shot and have clusters of enemies hovering on top of them, you almost feel bad for them! That's a little bit harder to do when it's humanoid. It's harder to read, because you just have a cluster of soldiers shooting at each other. The pure nature of us having robotic enemies makes that human connection easier."

As someone who's spent years praying for an extraction shooter my Tarkov-loving self can enjoy alongside more casual friends, it's deeply refreshing to see Arc Raiders do exactly that. There's so much more in play than 'get in, shoot, get out', and Embark Studios understands that better than most. That knowledge shines in the fleshed-out world and in the areas that feel more like an RPG than an extraction shooter. Once more: Arc Raiders has the sauce, and I'd be shocked if we don't see more studios attempting to cook with it in the years to come.

Check out some of the best shooter games for more third-person action antics.

In case you thought Embark Studios had its hands full with The Finals and Arc Raiders, the studio's CEO has announced they are working on two unannounced games.

Embark Studios made an impact in the industry as its free-to-play shooter The Finals stealth dropped back in 2023, and in just over two weeks brought in 10 million players. And now, less than two years later, the studio is about to release its second game – sci-fi extraction shooter Arc Raiders (which was announced back in 2021 and was delayed 3 years because they realized it sucked).

However, despite Arc Raiders releasing tomorrow and undoubtedly facing a challenge by launching between Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 and Battlefield 6, Embark Studios' CEO Patrick Soderlund has revealed the developers already have two more games planned on top of that – both of which are online games.

Speaking with The Game Business' Christopher Dring, Soderlund mentioned that the studio has other projects in the pipeline, which had Dring ask if they are all going to be online games when the market for those is very high-risk (which Sony's Concord and multiple cancelled projects can attest to). "That I think is just ingrained in our DNA," Soderlund said, adding that it "doesn't mean that they're online games the same way as The Finals or Arc Raiders."

Soderlund explained that "one of the concepts we have has a lot more edge to it than The Finals or Arc Raiders does," but that the other concept "is a little bit more conventional." Other than those notes, Soderlund didn't elaborate on if these projects were part of The Finals or Arc Raiders worlds, what they are, or how far along in development or planning they've gotten, so there's a chance things could change. But when you have a game that's done as well as The Finals and another as hyped as Arc Raiders, it's understandable why you would want to continue making online games.

Arc Raiders devs tell players to chill about gear score matchmaking because it doesn't actually exist: "The focus is on maintaining the split between solos and squads."

After being overtaken by aliens and viral outbreaks, robotic killing machines once again feel like the greatest threat to humanity, which makes the enemies of multiplayer extraction shooter Arc Raiders all the more timely – especially as debates around generative AI continue, in the wake of other large-scale tech trends. It's certainly not lost on the team at Stockholm-based Embark Studios.

"With Arc Raiders, we wanted to lean into some of the contemporary conversations around robots and AI," explains Sven Grundberg, director of brand and communications at Embark Studios. "Depending on who you ask, the prospect of intelligent machines is as terrifying as it is mind-blowing and exciting, so this game felt like an opportunity to explore that." It's perhaps all the more resonant that these robots, the titular Arc, aren't Arnie's killer terminators but something even less humanoid yet also recognisable right now, be it flying sentry drones or larger threats with animalistic limbs straight out of Boston Dynamics' labs.

Rise of the robots

There is nonetheless a notable retro style to Arc Raiders' science fiction, with '80s inspirations coming not just from action sci-fi movies but also fashion and music, including the 80s-inspired synthpop of Robyn's 'Dancing On My Own' that accompanied the game's announcement back in 2021. “We like to say that this is a grounded sci-fi game with bold contrasts — the environment and the world are full of historical artifacts mixed with futuristic remnants, and the ARC machines are an embodiment of this style, blending the foreign and the familiar,” says Grundberg.

It's a decade that undeniably continues to influence our pop culture but Grundberg tells us that they also wanted to bring their own fresh spin to it instead of just a mere nostalgia play. "We really felt that the throwback nature of the style embodied Arc Raiders’ story and helped bring our post-post-apocalyptic setting to life. The style also allowed us to convey that humanity was starting all over again, but not entirely from scratch."

In other words, don't expect a complete reset of civilization like Horizon's hunter-gatherer tribes but a still recognizable humanity that has taken refuge underground, save for the raiders who dare to venture to the surface, facing not only deadly machines but other rival raiders, for all the precious loot that they can carry on their steel frame backpacks in exchange for better gear and upgrades back at the den. It's in its worldbuilding, which includes a lot of destroyed buildings, with rooftops that you can easily zipline across also make for great vantage points, where Arc Raiders hopes to stand out from the extraction shooter competition. It's a goal that could open it up to newcomers just as much as giving extra depth to players who've already cut their teeth on the likes of Escape from Tarkov.

"We think that Arc Raiders is uniquely positioned in that it branches beyond the extraction genre with elements of action survival, adventure, and battle royale as well – opening the door for players who may not have tried an extraction shooter before, but keeping the high-stakes elements current extraction players love," explains Grundberg. "We’re also focusing a lot on building out the universe – It’s been really important to us throughout this process that the world of Arc Raiders is something vibrant and dynamic, with a rich narrative and versatile gameplay, enabling players to really immerse themselves in our world. We really think there’s an adventure here for any kind of player."

Multiplayer shooters are a ruthlessly competitive space – look no further than the high-profile casualties of Hyenas and Concord – yet some of its best can also be intimidating and inaccessible. There's however a lot to be hopeful for Embark in making Arc Raiders a more approachable and appealing extraction shooter that may make it a mainstream hit. It certainly helps that it already has the success of The Finals under its belt, and is taking those learnings directly into Arc Raiders – though crucially not all of them, given its pivot from free-to-play to premium release. "Launching a game in practice is one thing in theory and another thing in reality," says Grundberg. "The Finals was Embark’s first game to market, and we’re learning things every day. We recently hosted a closed tech test and the feedback we received was very encouraging and helped to point us in the right direction with how to continue to grow the game and optimize the experience for players." There's plenty of reason to hop in and scavenge come launch.

If your trigger finger can't wait for Arc Raiders, check out the best FPS games that made our list

Arc Raiders is a new free-to-play co-op shooter and the debut game from Embark Studios, which was founded by former EA and Battlefield boss Patrick Söderlund.

The game's announcement trailer shows off some beautifully detailed and photorealistic environments with dynamic lighting systems setting very different moods from scene to scene. The trailer starts with a squad of Raiders dealing with a few hostile drones, but by the end they're fighting off a massive, spider-like mecha.

The action takes place from a third-person perspective and tasks teams of Raiders with defending their home against an invasion by ARC, a gang of mechanized aliens relentless in its pursuit of your head and the destruction of your planet. Embark Studios says it presents a new spin on co-op gameplay by going "beyond simply matching ammo to a weapon. Experience action where combat demands unrehearsed creativity."

"We started Embark Studios three years ago with a blank canvas and some big ideas. Today, that canvas is a lot less blank and those ideas are becoming realities," said Söderlund. "With this reveal, we want to celebrate gameplay and give players more than a hint of how Arc Raiders looks and what it feels like to play. Ultimately for a co-op action game like Arc Raiders, that's what matters the most. We look forward to sharing more about the game in the coming months."

Arc Raiders is due to launch sometime in 2022 on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC via the Epic Games Store, Steam, and Nvidia GeForce Now. You can add it to your Steam wishlist now.

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The new sci-fi game coming from a studio built by an ex-EA and DICE boss is absurdly pretty, judging by this first, brief gameplay teaser.

Embark Studios still isn't ready to put a name or anything resembling a release window on its first project, though it is ready to show us a few quick scenes from an early version of the game. The nine-second teaser gives me the best kind of DICE Star Wars Battlefront vibes: retro sci-fi aesthetic, environments at a massive scale, and nearly photorealistic graphics, that sort of thing.

The game's original announcement framed it as "a cooperative free-to-play action game set in a distant future, about overcoming seemingly impossible odds by working together." The studio also revealed that it's now working on a second project, a PvP shooter that "leans heavily into team-based gameplay and puts dynamism, physicality, and destruction front and center". It lets you play as a samurai, judging by this concept art? 

If I was the samurai I'd be extremely pissed about the desperado bringing a pair of Japanese swords too. Katanas are my thing, pal. Stay in your damn lane.

Embark Studios was founded in 2018 by Patrick Söderlund, the former executive vice president of Worldwide Studios at EA - and before that the CEO then general manager of DICE from 2000 to 2010. Embark started small, but according to this latest update it already consists of more than 200 employees. Ideally its output will seem like that of an even larger company - the blog post outlines how Embark is building procedural tools that cut down on how much time and resources developers need to spend making assets for modern, big-budget games.

Embark plans to share more about its approach to making content for games in the coming weeks, so hopefully we won't need to wait much longer to hear about its pair of projects.

See what else we're looking forward to in our big list of upcoming games.