Remember how the upcoming extraction shooter Arc Raiders was meant to launch in 2022? Good times! And quite different times, because back then the game was PvE, seeing you and a few friends take on some nasty bots. Three years on, the game has shifted into a PvPvE experience, and the reason for 1. such a lengthy delay, and 2. a complete change in what players actually do is a simple one: the game was “not fun.”
This isn’t me being snarkily mean or anything, these are the words of Embark Studios’ CEO Peter Soderlund himself. Speaking to Edge (via GamesRadar), Sonderlund spoke of what it took to get the game to where it is now, explaining, “We loved every aspect of what we were trying to design. But we came to the conclusion, after quite a long time: ‘Guys, this game is not fun.'”
To be specific, it apparently was more a case of not being fun enough than outright bad or boring. This then led to the team going back to figure out what the game’s fundamentals were only six months before its supposed launch, and lo and behold, the PvPvE gameplay it now has was born.
Embark devs features an array of PvP pedigree, including some that have worked on both Battlefield and Star Wars: Battlefront (shame there’s not a third Battle game to list here), but many apparently felt ready to move on from PvP as a format. So the ‘vE’ element really helped to mix things up, especially because the game also took some cues from Shadow of the Colossus with its massive enemies to take down, although in this case they’re big ole robots instead.
And now, all this time later, there’s less than a month to go until we find out whether it ultimately works for the masses or not. I’m not big on shooters, but I’ll admit the vibes have piqued my curiosity at the very least. My biggest concern, and perhaps the game’s too, is it being an extraction shooter. Those that love ’em, love ’em, but they’re truly only really for the sickos right now. Let’s see if Arc Raiders can take the genre to the mainstream!
Arc Raiders launches October 30th.
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