ARC Raiders became far bigger than Embark Studios expected, but that unexpected success created a challenge the team was not fully prepared for. According to Executive Producer Aleksander Grøndal, players consumed the game’s progression and content so quickly that the development team simply could not keep pace.
Embark initially responded by trying to update ARC Raiders faster. However, the studio eventually realized that pushing content out at that speed was affecting the quality and impact of those updates. And that lesson helped drive the decision to move away from frequent major releases and instead spend more time building larger updates.
In brief:
- ARC Raiders attracted significantly more players than Embark expected.
- Players progressed through available content faster than the development team could keep up.
- The ARC Raiders team has grown from roughly 60 developers during production to around 120.
- Embark is now prioritizing larger, more polished updates instead of trying to win on content quantity.
ARC Raiders Players Were Moving Faster Than Embark Could Develop
Speaking with GamesBeat, Grøndal explained that Embark underestimated just how quickly dedicated ARC Raiders players would work through the game.
The studio tried responding with faster updates and more things to do, but Grøndal said the team “just couldn’t keep pace with the players.” Some players then became frustrated because the content being released was not always as meaningful as they had hoped.
Embark was also operating with a relatively small team. ARC Raiders had around 60 developers on average during production, according to Grøndal, although the team has since expanded to approximately 120 people and is expected to grow further.
Despite that growth, Embark does not want to solve the problem by simply producing more content.
Embark Wants Quality Over Quantity
Grøndal says the goal is to give developers more time to create content with the level of polish expected from ARC Raiders. That philosophy aligns with Embark’s previously announced decision to release major updates twice a year while continuing smaller live updates, balancing changes, bug fixes, and events between them.
Frozen Trail will be the first major test of that strategy when it arrives on October 8. Embark describes it as its largest ARC Raiders update yet, featuring a massive new map, new ARCs, weapons and gadgets, an Outpost system, progression changes, and a Skill Tree rework.
