In recent weeks, speculation has ignited across the ARC Raiders community following a hint from the game’s design director, Virgil Watkins, that players might someday be able to explore the interiors of the giant ARCs seen towering over locations like Blue Gate and Buried City.
These huge machines, often seen looming on the horizon, have been mostly environmental eye-candy until now. If Watkins’ comments become reality, it could open up a huge new frontier of gameplay for this acclaimed extraction shooter from Embark Studios.
Watkins on Exploration in ARC Raiders
Virgil Watkins has been candid in the press about future ambitions and possibilities for ARC Raiders’ evolving world. In interviews about the game’s roadmap and how the developers are thinking about PvE expansion, Watkins acknowledged that those towering mechanical ARCs in the background, which many players jokingly refer to by names like “The Emperor,” represent potential content the studio has considered.
As of writing, Embark has said there are no firm plans to make players fight these giant ARCs, mainly due to technical limitations like server performance. But the idea of interacting with them more directly, possibly even going inside a massive ARC, isn’t off the table in the longer term.
Watkins commented that the team is “pretty happy” with the current state of PvE but is continuously exploring ways to escalate and evolve the experience, especially after seeing how players engage with the world. Although he didn’t confirm specific plans to open up the interiors of those giant ARCs, his statements suggest that the idea is being explored behind the scenes as part of future expansions or content pipelines.
If Embark Studios eventually implements interior exploration of the ARCs, it would mark a major shift in how ARC Raiders structures its zones and missions. Blue Gate and Buried City are already among the most iconic maps in the game, known for intense PvPvE combat and high-value loot areas.
Giving players access to the inside of the massive ARCs seen on their periphery could add layers of narrative mystery, climactic PvE battles, or even hidden rewards and objectives.
Whether this idea ever becomes a reality depends on how Embark balances ambition with performance and gameplay polish, but Watkins’ comments have clearly opened the door to that possibility, or at least stirred developer curiosity in that direction.
