I'm a fan of extraction shooters, sure, but I've never liked one as much as Arc Raiders. Now, Embark Studios has made the notoriously difficult sub-genre slightly easier with more forgiving death penalties, plentiful loot, and nicer lobbies, but the standout feature for me is undoubtedly the social element.
I've encountered bloodthirsty raiders who'd fit better in a colosseum rather than Stella Montis, who have challenged me to axe-to-axe combat on threat of death, voiceless raiders who use voice prompts to help me find hidden loot, and battle medics who manage to pop out of thin air to revive me when I get downed by a rogue arc, it seems like Arc Raiders is a sandbox for all sorts of social adventures.
"What I like about the game and what I think is interesting is how people are playing the game," Embark Studios CEO, Patrick Söderlund, says in an interview with GamesBeat. "I read an article the other day about how this game is almost like a social experiment.
"The social aspect of how this game is played and the interactions people have in the game and what stories the players tell, that I think is where the glue sits, that is at least why it is appealing to me. I have over 100 hours in this game since launch, and I've played it in various shapes and forms for six years, and I still play it."
I may have toned down just how much Arc Raiders I've been playing as of late, but that's not due to any lack of interest, even if the expedition isn't all that. It's the kind of game that I can comfortably dip in and out of, getting my fill of weird player interactions when I so desire.
"It's the first game that I've played where proximity chat is something that people are completely comfortable with, and that's a natural part of playing the game," Söderlund says. "That to me is pretty cool. And on top of that, all the crazy player stories that unfold as you play the game. I've bumped into people doing crazy things in the game. We did not expect that, we did not expect people to take on roles of Defender of the Swamp or something, we never anticipated that."
To be fair, I don't think anyone saw Boschmerchant, Keeper of the Swamp extraction coming. There are so many examples of odd and charming behaviour in Arc Raiders that nothing really surprises me anymore. Aside from swamp defenders, there's been orderly queues for quest completions, Rat Guards who protect unsuspecting players from extraction campers, Topside sheriffs, and arc wranglers.
"There are things that the game allows for that we maybe didn't think of, like you can jump on top of an arc and ride it," Söderlund says. "We tried that, and we knew that was going to work, but we didn't realise [it would be so common]."
When you boil it down, all the wacky hijinks that happen Topside are testimony to what a great job Embark has done. One of my favourite traits in videogames is when the devs can simply hand players the right tools to create their own adventures, it's why I love Lethal Company so much.
"The kind of emergent gameplay that you're talking about comes about as a result of a lot of experimentation and iteration, and [Embark] were very clear that you wanted to do that from the beginning," former Nexon CEO Owen Mahoney says. "I think it takes two sides to do that. One is to be able to say this is how we're going to go about the development process, but also having a little extra room to do that and knowing that the team can deliver when you've got the room to experiment.
"But it takes a very high degree of open-mindedness and also self-discipline, otherwise you'll just end up developing a game forever. I think Embark and the team are very unique in that way, in their ability to experiment."
