As an evolving, live-service games, Embark Studios has a large list of plans for Arc Raiders. As the game moves to its next update, Shrouded Sky, the extraction shooter is standing strong with over 14 million players, but as some begin to grate against some of the game’s rougher edges, its developers admit that there’s still a lot of work to be done.
One pain point for Arc Raiders is the game’s map condition events. Condition’s like Blue Gate’s Locked Gate event, which requires players to find security cards across the map, and Hidden Bunker, which requires players to find four buttons to unlock doors in Spaceport, have been criticised as largely unfair.
Speaking to PCGamer, design lead Virgil Watkins admitted that some Arc Raiders events are not as fun as the team would like, and need to be revised. Right now, during these map conditions, PvP-focused players tend to camp entrances instead of actually engaging in the mission type, something Watkins says means that “revisions are probably required”.
“Players, especially higher-end players of more-engaged players, are so effective now at taking out the Arc that it didn’t become the mitigating factor that we initially intended.”
Arc Raiders design lead Virgil Watkins
“Of course, when we built that [Locked Gate and Hidden Bunker], we had an idealised way of how we hoped people would engage with it,” Watkins said. “And then, you know, as players always do, they find this sort of meta throughline. A lot of the stuff that we launched with was very much a consequence of the capacity and time we had up to that point.”
The developer explained that Embark already tried to stop entrance camping in Hidden Bunker by stacking “pretty deadly enemies near the entrance”. However, the player base has already evolved and those enemies are not as deadly as they once were on launch.
“Players, especially higher-end players of more-engaged players, are so effective now at taking out the Arc that it didn’t become the mitigating factor that we initially intended,” he said. Watkins added that the developers now have a wealth of “live data” that shows how players are engaging with certain parts of the game, allowing the team to better polish the experience they want players to engage with.
Whatever the case, the game is going to keep evolving with the aim to keep players on their toes. As Embark works to make its extraction shooter’s world feel alive, these events will be updated, upgraded and overhauled alongside the majority of other parts of the experience.
Alongside revised map events, Embark is also planning to expand the game with multiple new maps for players to explore throughout 2026. Additionally, the studio has pitched ideas to turn its menu-based hub world of Speranza into a fully 3D, explorable location where players can meet, trade, and more.
While Arc Raiders does have a competitor on the horizon—Bungie’s Marathon—the extraction shooter seems poised for a huge 2026. With new maps, weapons, enemies, and more on the way, it’s clear that the future for the game is, at the very last, extremely ambitious.
