Steam tells me I've put 250 hours into Arc Raiders since its October 30 launch, which is 250 more hours than I ever thought I would invest in an extraction shooter. Embark Studios' streamlined, retrofuturistic, and PvE-heavy approach to the formula defined by the likes of Escape from Tarkov has expanded the extraction space and grabbed over 12 million people. It has also exceeded Embark's expectations in every way possible, from meteoric sales to surprising player behavior.
Earlier this month, I sat down with design lead Virgil Watkins for a long chat about Arc Raiders' launch and Embark's future plans. We're starting to see those plans roll out now: on January 27, we got a big update called Headwinds, adding our very own Arc Raiders Bird City, making some quietly massive changes to the loot economy, letting the true sickos take on 1v3 lobbies, and introducing a new long-term goal about hunting Arc.
