As Arc Raiders guns towards an impressive start devs unveil a 10 year update roadmap for the title

Embark’s latest foray into the extraction shooter genre has been a success. Arc Raiders surpassed 100,000 concurrent players on Steam 30 minutes into launch, and has achieved an all-time peak of 264,673 players on launch day. However, the developers are already planning to keep the game going for at least ten years.

It appears things are just getting started for Embark’s new extraction shooter, which sits at a 90% user rating on Steam, with over 16,000 positive reviews. However, the story of Arc Raiders remains a mystery. So far, the game is set in a post-apocalyptic ‘70s where humanoid robots have forced mankind underground.

Sitting down with PC Gamer a few hours before Arc Raiders' launch, executive producer Aleksander Grondal promised the game’s plot will evolve, which could hook players till 2035. Currently, players are supposed to piece together the lore of Arc Raiders amid PvPvE battles. In the interview, Grondal said:

“What has happened to this world? It’s a big question, because the raiders. They don’t know anymore. It’s kind of a lost myth, so they’re trying to piece it together.” As players complete quests consisting of Arc kills, wire hints, and finding chests, they’ll compile information in a codex. 

Grondal further added:

The codex is a repository of all kinds of lore-adjacent notes that are collected, and you can easily go back and read up on what is happening to the Rocketeer. And this updates and evolves based on quest progression, but also other trigger points you’re visiting, or like, if you’ve defeated the Wasp five times, and you get to know more about it.

Embark is planning more content for Arc Raiders, including community-driven events, holiday specials, and new maps, along with serialized storytelling. Grondal said:

There will be events that the players will participate in. Some of them will be community-based, as the whole community will join them, and they might range from world-changing events to more novel Christmas holiday-type events.

We will introduce new locations, conclude arcs, and start new story arcs. So we see this as an evolving game.

The studio is brainstorming to expand Speranza’s depths and lore for at least ten years, and betting on player engagement to keep the fight going.