Embark Studios has announced a new content release structure for its extraction shooter Arc Raiders. For now, the game will see major updates released twice a year, although other updates will release in-between.
In a recent blog post, executive producer Aleksander Grondal explained that the new update structure will allow Embark to continue “refining core systems to support a more meaningful long-term experience”.
Following the announcement, Grondal explained in an interview with GameSpot that the new update structure isn’t what the team initially wanted. “When we shipped the game, we had this idea that we wanted to do monthly content updates,” the producer told the outlet.
The producer admits that the game’s prior update strategy was “a pretty ambitious plan”, adding that the decision to change comes from the fact that the Arc Raiders team is “not the largest team in the world”. Alongside Arc, the studio is working on updates for its free-to-play arena shooter The Finals as well as other in-development games.
Grondal hints that the decision to change update strategy comes after fan reception to the game’s Riven Tides update. As the biggest update since launch, many fans were disappointed at the lack of substance in the update as well as the size of the new map.
“Putting out content updates every month, I think the ambition was great to keep people engaged and interested,” he said. “I think, though–and the community and the players are telling us the same–that they feel like some of these updates aren’t really hitting the mark in terms of what they want, in terms of impact. And we as a team feel that as well.”
The producer adds that the “cadence” of monthly updates has “worked a bit against us”, making it so that new updates aren’t substantial as they work against a timeline. With this in mind, Arc’s next massive update, Frozen Trail, launches in October and adds a revised skill tree, new progression systems, more quests, a new map, and more Arc enemies to fight.
Grondal concludes that the new release cadence will give the team “more time to build more impactful features”. However, smaller updates will still be launching as the team sees fit. “We will continue doing bug fixes and quality-of-life [updates], running events, and tweaking and balancing will continue as we’re doing it today,” he said.
There has been some concern from fans regarding the new update strategy with some conflating the change to the game’s lower player counts. Nevertheless, Embark is adamant that Arc is in a good place with game-changing updates planned for the future.
In fact, just recently, a datamine for the extraction shooter found evidence of major features that could be in development. The datamine, which successfully found information on the game’s next map, shows evidence of a Clan system and even player trading, the latter a feature publicly pitched by CEO Patrick Soderland last year.
