It can be quite frustrating to join a match late in Arc Raiders. While a large selection of players may join at the start of a 30-minute session, the popular extraction shooter often places you into a match just over halfway through with 17 minutes or so left to complete quests, grab some loot and leave.
With over 12 million players jumping in, it can be annoying to plan your loadout for a specific task—such as hunting and taking down a Bastion, for example—and then finding out you don’t have the time to do your objective. This can hurt even more if you have a quest to search an area on one side of the map and load in on the other side.
In a recent interview with GamesRadar, Arc Raiders design lead Virgil Watkins admitted that sometimes it “really sucks” to get a late join, but players who do join late often benefit “economically” from jumping in halfway through.
Watkins explained that its a case of “data versus perception”, saying: “We 100% acknowledge the whole thing of, ‘Man, I came in to do that trial and now I clearly don’t have enough time to do that, and that sucks, so I’m just going to leave,’ or whatever. That aspect is definitely not great.”
However, the designer explained that “the perception around late joining and what it affords you has been quite interesting. Players are like, ‘The loot’s all gone,’ or whatever else. But players who late join economically profit way more than people who aren’t. The session, when they are fresh, does eventually get quieter, and very often they come across the remnants of fights or can maybe take out bigger drones or hit high-ticket areas more readily than other players. So that’s been a very interesting thing to look at.”
The designer explained that late joins are present so that the game doesn’t pitter out and die after ten minutes. In early testing, players who knew what they were doing would take around a third of a match to complete their objectives and then leave “which would kill the suspense and danger” as remaining players would be running around on their lonesome. Watkins also explained that the size of maps means there should always be something for players to pivot to if their original plans can’t be achieved.
Nevertheless, the Arc Raiders dev did admit that late joining “really sucks” when players jump in with only one objective. “I think trying to do more on that side of things is where I want to look next. Coming in with a dedicated purpose and that’s been undercut by the late join is where I’d want to remove the pain point first,” the developer said.
Embark has huge plans for Arc Raiders throughout 2026 with the developers already confirming “multiple maps” with their own unique gameplay opportunities will be added to the game over the next year. Additionally, the studio is already toying with new ARCs, teasing enemies that hopefully won’t “break the servers” with their size.
Furthermore, Embark is also constantly working on rebalancing with the studio specifically noting the cost-to-benefit ratio of repairing high-end gear, as well as attempting to further incentivise players to go through with Expeditions by crafting new rewards. It’s a lot!
