At Gamescom’s Opening Night Live last night, Nexon’s Embark Studios did more than drop a trailer for ARC Raiders: It also set an ambitious launch window and a pricing plan.
Calling it a “PvPvE third-person action-survival shooter,” Embark says it will launch next year on PC, PS5, and Xbox X|S, with a “premium game” $40 price point. A public tech test will run October 24th through 27th; you can sign up for that through Steam.
Readers will recall that Nexon bought out Patrick Söderlund’s Embark Studios back in 2019; ARC Raiders has been part of the Nexon MMO pipeline ever since. The game has expanded its scope over the last few years, shifting from a basic PvP shooter to what the team was calling a “PvPvE survival extraction shooter” last year. It was a free-to-play game at that point too, but clearly the company has changed its mind about monetization.
“It became increasingly clear to us during development that a premium model is a better fit for the experience we’re building with ARC Raiders,” explains executive producer Aleksander Grøndal. “This shift allows us to focus on what truly matters for this game — creating an engaging, balanced, and replayable action survival experience.” ”
“While ARC Raiders has changed and evolved over the course of development, the world we have built has always been our anchor. Our inspiration draws from current-day themes taken to their extreme, like the prospect of colonizing space, at a time when the relationship between man and machine is becoming increasingly fraught,” creative director Stefan Strandberg says.
“In ARC Raiders you enter a vast and lethal world. People have fled to the underground colony of Speranza, seeking supplies to survive, and shelter from ARC machines on the surface. Demand for resources is at an all-time high, but venturing the surface to get them is a risky job. You enlist as a Raider, fighting for your own survival and that of your neighborhood in the underground colony — scavenging and hunting for resources that must be extracted back safely from the surface. Standing in your way are ARC machines — a mysterious, deadly foe — as well as other players — Raiders — who are also competing for loot and their own survival. To grow as a Raider, you must make it back down to the colony alive. There, you get to meet the traders of Speranza to trade your loot and valuables, embark on quests, upgrade and improve and expand your chambers, and grow your character to suit your playstyle — to become the Raider that you want to be. Whether teaming up or going solo, it’s a game that rewards thinking ahead and carefully observing the world around you, rather than running into action guns blazing. The gameplay is tactile, visceral, and grounded, with a rich and playful sandbox of gadgets and tools, beyond just guns and ammo.”
