Arc Raiders

Credit: Embark Studios

A new map is coming to popular extraction shooter, Arc Raiders. As part of the Frozen Trail update, the new map features “a new landscape in the Rust Belt with layered design and new mysteries to uncover in the largest map in the game” according to the Arc Raiders blog.

Alongside this new map will be new ARC enemies with “fresh designs” and “unique behaviors” plus new systems of progression, new opportunities to uncover the mysteries of the ARC, an improved skill tree and much more.

All of this sounds fantastic. The biggest problem with the newest map, Riven Tides, is its size. While I appreciate small maps, I expected something at least as big as Buried City after so many months of waiting. Riven Tides would make a fine new map if we’d gotten another new map between now and the release of Stella Montis.

I’m also eager to learn about these new progression systems and what exactly an improved skill tree looks like.

There’s just one problem: The new map and the Frozen Trail update won’t be out until October. We have five months to wait for this, and unlike the last series of updates, there will be very little between now and then. Here’s how developer Embark Studios explains this shift away from monthly updates to larger, more complete updates every . . . well, half-year apparently.

"When ARC Raiders launched, we planned to offer monthly updates. The intention was to keep you all engaged, to ensure the game always felt fresh, and to give you reasons to keep braving topside. But once the game was in players' hands, we saw that the kind of long-term experience we want to create for ARC Raiders requires more transformative updates.

"Over time, we’ve found that the pressure of a monthly cycle limits how impactful these updates can be. You feel it, and we feel it too. Running at that pace isn’t sustainable, or compatible with the bigger ambitions we have for this game."

The plan now:

"Going forward, we've made the decision to release major updates twice a year – larger in scale, more impactful, with the goal to genuinely change how you play the game. Don’t worry, a dedicated live service team will continue running ARC Raiders day-to-day: regular live updates, plus balance fixes, bug fixes, store updates, and player events aren't going anywhere.

“This additional development space also allows us to invest more deeply in the health of ARC Raiders, from progression and economy balancing to fair play and anti-cheat efforts. We know these are foundational to the experience, especially in a game where every encounter and extraction matters.”

On its face, this makes some sense. Bigger, richer, more involved updates sound great. In practice, however, I fail utterly to see how this keeps a live-service game alive and its players engaged. In the past six months we’ve gotten several decent-sized updates with Cold Snap, the Hurricane and a few new enemies. The problem with these updates isn’t that they’re too small or too frequent, however, it’s the content itself.

It Already Took 6 Months To Get Riven Tides

First of all, it took about six months to get a new map and that map was lackluster. If Embark only planned to release one map in six months, they had plenty of time to come up with something better.

New ARC Enemies Have Been Frustrating

Second, the new ARC enemies have been extremely punishing. Not only were Shredders released into other maps, we got the fire-breathing Firefly, the exploding Comet, the Vaporizer with its forcefield and now the massive, high-HP Turbines. It’s fine to release some extra-challenging new enemies, but would it kill the devs to release some new enemies that were fun to fight?

New Guns Are Hard To Come By

New guns in shooters are always fun but in an extraction shooter, they’re hard to come by and blueprints are extremely rare. An update that releases new guns but doesn’t give players a chance to try these out unless they’re lucky or play a ton is super disappointing. Why not have these guns rewarded for quests with the new update? Sure, weeks later the Canto SMG is a reward item, but it should have been with the launch of the update.

Changes To Gameplay Have Been A Mixed Bag

Embark Studios seems to have the same frustrating philosophy about gun balance every other modern studio adopts: If a gun is being used too much, nerf it. I’m so perplexed by this. These are fun guns and players shouldn’t be forced to use something else. Just make other guns stronger!

The new Durability mechanic is even more annoying. Guns break far, far too fast which just adds to the grind in the least fun way possible. I could probably go on and on about the various updates made to the game since launch that make it worse and less fun. To be fair, some updates have also been improvements especially to crafting, but on the whole I’d say Embark meddling with things has broken the “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” rule more often than not.

The problem is not that these updates lacked substance, it’s that Embark isn’t very good at gauging what players actually want. We should have had two new maps at this point. The new Map Conditions are fine, but they get old quickly. How much time was spent developing the Hurricane map condition? It’s terrible. A Hurricane hitting a map for five minutes could be a cool live event, but other than good loot in Raider Caches, why would I ever play this mode?

Why aren’t there random events? This would be a very easy way to spice things up. Have random live-events (Destiny-style, as Marathon does) occur across all the maps that shake up the game a bit. Special ARC that show up without warning. Weather events. A crashed spaceship that’s about to explode and is filled with great loot.

More guns. Not every month, but every two or three months. There’s plenty of room for things like:

A grey-tier shotgun.

Another scoped rifle.

A Blue-tier shotgun.

More pistols.

A crossbow!

The point I’m making here isn’t that all my ideas are brilliant and that all Embark’s ideas are terrible, it’s simply that I think the devs have not quite struck on what’s wrong with the game’s current release cadence. Sure, more time might lead to bigger, better updates, but if they don’t give players the kind of fun content they want, then bigger is not better.

And six months between updates for a live-service game is simply ridiculous. This is not how live-service games are run and it’s effectively a death knell for Arc Raiders. When I told my group about this update the response was basically, “I don’t think I can wait that long” and “Well we’d better find something else to play until October.” Three month seasons is the sweet spot. Well, 10-week seasons, actually. Call Of Duty puts out five to ten new maps every 10 weeks. They’re not nearly as involved as an Arc Raiders map, of course, but there’s no reason we couldn’t get 1 small map and 1 big map every six months. Release a small map halfway in and a big map at the end. That keeps players engaged. By October, players will have abandoned this in droves.

Oh, and guess what comes out in November? GTA 6. And Modern Warfare 4 will launch around then also. Arc Raiders will drop its big new update in the middle of some very major game releases and instead of an engaged playerbase, they’ll be fighting to get players to come back. The small updates and balancing stuff they’re going to release in the meantime won’t keep players around. It’s just a bizarre decision and makes me question Embark’s leadership in a very big way. What a shame. To have such a golden goose and let it die on the vine.