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Arc Raiders is redefining the extraction shooter after a successful 2025 launch. We sat down with Embark Studios' Art Director Robert Sammelin to discuss the art style of the game, how Embark implements player feedback, and what the future holds in store for @ARCRaidersGame.
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00:00Arc Raiders is redefining the extraction shooter with its stunning maps, innovative robotic
00:05enemies and emergent social interactions that reward team play while making room for heartbreaking
00:10ganking and griefing.
00:12We sat down with Embark Studios art director Robert Samalin in Los Angeles to chat about
00:17creative player behaviour in Arc Raiders, how the studio digests incredible amounts
00:22of feedback and what future lies ahead for one of 2025's most popular games.
00:26Make sure you stick around to the end to hear his fascinating comments on how your behaviour
00:31in game affects matchmaking.
00:34We started by asking about the unique art direction in Arc Raiders.
00:39We set out to sort of establish and explain the world, more so for us as we were developing
00:47but also in terms of how the players experience it, that it's multi-layered.
00:52There are these remnants of our current day, which is way, way in the past in the game.
00:59And then towards what would be the future for us is when mankind opted to, again, out and
01:05move into space.
01:06And building upon things that are inherently recognisable from today and we added on top
01:11these sort of brutalist and inspired structures and all those things, but making that balance
01:17really well and make this sort of appeal of it, it's like moss or grass peeking through concrete,
01:24that it sort of beautifies it in a way, that it provides this beautiful decay, if you will.
01:29And that's, I think, a power of contrast with the brutalism and the chaoticness of nature
01:36and how those mean.
01:37The notion of a post-apocalyptic world comes with a territory that it's bleak and it's dark
01:43and it's gloomy and we made the conscious decision to, like we're saying that this is
01:48in the post-post-apocalypse.
01:49So would we sort of balance this kind of dreary, really dark premise with, you know, an inviting
01:56treatment and that was important to us.
01:58But we made a decision early on that we wanted to sort of dig into figuring out what the ratio
02:07is of relatability and sort of the unknown, how big a degree of sci-fi-ism that we can apply
02:16to something that is inherently understandable and relatable and, again, with sort of balancing
02:21this dark premise with sort of inviting and charm, we opted for really sort of striking
02:27colours and sort of bold fashion, drawing from loads of inspirations throughout history,
02:32through pop culture, anything that works.
02:35The shadows in Ark Raiders often conceal threats, so radically affect your playstyle.
02:40We asked about the importance of playing with light and shadow in the design of Ark Raiders maps.
02:45Yeah, it was crucial to sort of define these maps because it's part of this whole sort of
02:53contrasting of making sure that there is always these spots and light for tension and even horror
03:00at times and balancing this in between. And we found out fairly early on that the play with contrast
03:06of moving in from light and dark and utilising the darkness to sort of instill a special mood
03:12or sort of opportunities and perils for the player was key to it. So it's very deliberate in every map
03:20that we have.
03:21I love that you said horror. To me, playing Slyler, it's a horror there.
03:24Oh, for sure, yeah. Low-key horror.
03:28How much did the gameplay on certain maps influence their design and art style?
03:33Some of them are, you know, stemming and traced back to the very first iteration of the game and
03:39of course rejigged and redone and reconfigured to work for the game that it currently is. And
03:45other maps have been built specifically for this. And there's quite a vast difference in experience
03:51that you can have in these worlds. Some are geared more towards opening up for more PvP.
03:58I'm personally terrified of Stellamontis. I play a lot on solo, but then I play with my brothers and
04:05co-workers and friends. Stellamontis is, you need to be prepared for it. You need to sort of boost yourself.
04:12I have a real soft spot for the dam. I think it's the sort of perfect, most well-rounded one
04:20for the experience of the game.
04:22Because this is also the first map that you engage with. But I also have a very sort of strong
04:30love for
04:30Buried City, for what it is. The complexity of it, the sort of the looks of it. The way that
04:37you sort of
04:38move in and out of buildings, it prompts for that curiosity in a sort of a higher degree,
04:45curiosity per minute than most maps. Arc Raiders had a lengthy development.
04:51Was there a moment when the game we know today revealed itself to the developer?
04:57I mean, through the different iterations, there have been many. But if we're looking at Arc Raiders,
05:03this is what it is right now. It was fairly early on, after the pivot of playing around with these
05:09systems, where we could see that shifting the scale, the balance between you almost together
05:18overpowering Arc, but seeing that shift into the lethality of Arc, and then introduced to the other
05:25players in there, finally striking that balance of friend or foe within anyone you meet against
05:32this sort of common enemy. That's for me when I felt this really clicked. It has something
05:37I've not really experienced before. How surprised have you been at the creativity of players?
05:43That was part of the, even the DNA of the early versions of Arc Raiders, to have this
05:50capabilities of using gadgets and the tools and all these things to at your sort of disposal and be
05:55creative with them. The game has been in development for a long time. We've of course tested and tried
06:02out things throughout the years, but whenever you launch a game and see the players utilizing,
06:08especially the physicality of a game like this, it is genuinely surprising. But it's mostly delightful
06:13things. I think that we've seen players do things that we've tested out, but to a whole different level.
06:21It's also really useful too, for us to find ways to tweak and patch and fix.
06:26Yeah. There's quite a few things that have taken us by surprise. Other things are sort of more or
06:32less known, because you have to continuously find ways to sort of more waterproof the experience and
06:42figure out how to mitigate anything that is either generally damaging exploits or just general bugs.
06:51Teamwork, pacifist builds and social interaction have become huge parts of the appeal of Arc
06:56creators for many players. We wanted to know how much of this was intended and whether Embark wants
07:01to encourage this style of play. Internally, we were hoping that we would strike this balance of
07:08having people almost apprehensive on how they're going to interact with other people. That there is
07:15this tension, this underpinning of threat, but also the sort of more, the greater threat, the exterior one with
07:21art would perhaps invite to these sort of cooperative scenarios. But I think internally playtesting
07:28with devs, we're way worse people than for the community when it comes to how we engage in combat.
07:34We were certainly hoping that we would see this happen. But I think to the extent that it happened
07:40at launch and seeing how people treated us socially is heartwarming. I think it's really uplifting to see.
07:49For what this game is, you don't choose a playstyle with a certain capacity, sort of the capabilities
07:54and such. It's up to each player to sort of equip and adapt to each scenario. The different maps
08:02open for and allow for very different sort of play styles and depending on what kind of gear or
08:07gadgets you bring in, you can sort of use them to your advantage more on certain maps than others.
08:14I think there's lots to be said about the armaments and gadgets that you bring. I think it is
08:22something that we want to explore with each sort of subsequent map update and new maps to see what
08:28else we can bring to the sort of palette that we paint from. Some people in the Arc Raiders community
08:34have suspected that player behaviour has a tangible impact on matchmaking, with more peaceful,
08:40cooperative players being matched together on some servers, whilst others are filled with more
08:44violent players. Embarkers never publicly confirmed this, but Samulin hinted our suspicions were correct.
08:50No, it is, without going into sort of excruciating detail, it is... We'll take the detail.
08:56It is quite complex. So we do analyse behaviour and match accordingly.
09:05You can't say any more. No. We got some figures on how many people have even downed another player,
09:13and they were surprisingly low at sort of a large scale. But there's also quite a different experience
09:20in playing with a squad or solo, that we see this sort of difference in between. And I think that
09:26also
09:26opens up for a very kind of different experience, depending on how you choose to engage with the game
09:32from the get-go. Of course, data is great. The amount of just data that we get from telemetry is
09:39really helpful in finding out what we should be addressing or tweaking or tuning, and pairing it
09:45up with sort of internal assumptions. I mean, it's invaluable when it comes to tuning and balancing,
09:53because that's something that we will keep doing continuously. What thought goes into introducing
09:58new art to the game? Sort of a game like this, that everything that is introduced, you need to consider
10:04the measure and then the countermeasure. And seeing how people engage with ARK, I think we've learned
10:11quite a lot on how they sort of have chosen to sort of combat them. You can learn a great
10:18deal from that
10:19and figure out what the sort of countermeasure to these measures are. We started with a fairly
10:25sort of slim roster of ARK, and that's, of course, something that we're expanding over time.
10:30So, again, sort of measure and countermeasure, and sort of different avenues open up for
10:37different types of behaviors with even the ARK as well.
10:40And finally, we asked what the future holds for ARK Raiders.
10:44I mean, looking at other games, I think there are loads of lessons to be had and analyze what could
10:50go
10:50wrong. For sure, there are loads of pitfalls that you can sort of at least prevent. One lesson is, of
10:59course,
10:59of having a robust anti-cheats from the start and making sure that there is a lot of sort of
11:05good
11:07housekeeping being done on a regular cadence with having a sort of a live product in place.
11:13That's kind of crucial. There's one thing of, of course, updating the maps over time so they don't
11:19grow stair on time because we don't have a whole lot of maps from the get-go. We'll add more
11:24sort of
11:25updating it. But the map conditions is another one that sort of changes the rule sets a bit and changes
11:31the sort of basic loot economy and enemy behaviors and their pros and cons for these. And that's
11:39something that we're exploring more and more over time, and so what we can add to it. We had almost
11:43this 10-year plan. This is our ambition to keep this game alive for the longest time. Even though it
11:49is a
11:49sort of paid game, it is a live game. It's something that we want to keep alive for the longest
11:54time
11:54possible, as long as players engage with it and have fun and see how it is evolving in a good
11:59way.
12:00I think games like these will evolve depending on sort of community behaviors, community feedback,
12:09and picking out the things that we see people engage really well with. But also
12:22I think there's a wide range of routes that we can take with this, and time will tell how we
12:30sort of dig into it, but we for sure have a pretty long-standing plan of where we want to
12:35take it.
12:36Thank you to Robert for providing some insight on one of the year's most interesting shooters,
12:40and to you for watching. Make sure you check out our Arc Raiders guides to make the most of your
12:45runs,
12:46and for more in-depth interviews like this, subscribe to PC Gamer.
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