Following a successful launch, Arc Raiders is set for a massive 2026. With multiple new maps confirmed for the game alongside new enemy designs, the game is already set to massively expand over the next 12 months.
Arc Raiders studio Embark Studios has already confirmed its roadmap of updates from January to April, but there’s no mention of new weapons. While new guns will inevitably come to the game one day, there will never be one-shot kill weapons.
In an interview with GamesRadar, design lead Virgil Watkins confirmed that there will never be weapons that can fully drain a player’s shield and health in a single hit as that creates a “deeply boring” experience.
“There should never be a one-shot situation if you’re wearing a shield and have full health,” the design lead said. “I think that gameplay is deeply boring, to just be deleted in an instant, in our type of game.”
When asked if new legendary weapons could come to the game, Watkins said that a new set of guns is “completely possible” but that guns have to be “relative to each other” with the team having to be “quite careful” of adding anything that upsets the balance.
“If we were to do something that is substantially stronger in PvP, it needs to come with the appropriate price tag, running costs, risk,” the developer said. “I’m not in any way against players having that spike in power and feeling very cool for a moment. But it can’t be like, I unlocked this thing and now I just win fights.”
Arc Raiders already has some pretty powerful weapons. After all, a crack shot from a base Ferro can drain a basic shield. However, it makes sense to not introduce one-shot weapons, especially considering the likelihood of camping players that try to take out players after they’ve finished fighting an ARC.
Honestly, a one-shot weapon pretty much drains the balance from the weapons sandbox, and it makes sense to never introduce something so powerful that anyone who wields it could essentially win every fight. That sort of power trip just doesn’t really belong in Arc Raiders.
