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We sit down with Embark Studios' Art Director, Robert Sammelin, to discuss the unique art direction of the extraction shooter Arc Raiders. Discover how they crafted a 'post-post-apocalyptic' world, the importance of light and shadow in gameplay, and the fascinating way your in-game behavior influences matchmaking.
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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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