While the robotic enemies of ARC Raiders – ARCs – might look like they’re actively learning from player behaviour thanks to the fact that Embark Studios used machine learning to develop their movements, the studio has confirmed that this is not the case. In an interview with GamesRadar, machine learning research lead Martin Singh-Blom has confirmed that the studio itself makes under-the-hood updates to the ARCs to give them more capabilities.
One example used was that of a popular Twitch clip showing off how players could hide from a Leaper in tunnels, with the ARC being unable to follow due to its poor vision in constrained spaces. In response to this, Embark Studios gave Leapers improved vision so that they could better follow players into tight corridors. Flying ARCs have seemingly seen similar improvements.
“We’ve done similar things with the indoor flying behaviors,” said Singh-Blom. “We keep trying to make the flying drones better and better at flying indoors. And every time players start to think that they’re safe in some place, then it’s nice if we can figure out a way to make the drones enter that space and make it less safe.”
Rather than using data from players actively in the game, Singh-Blom explained that Embark Studios keeps the improvements it could make to the ARCs in mind all the time. Clips from the game getting popular also helps the developers figure out what they should work on next.
“It’s not like we’re training on player data,” he said. “The loop is, all the game developers look at TikToks and YouTube clips and say, ‘ Hey, that’s really cool. Could we make this change that would really make people squeal?’ And then we make the change, and then people hopefully get surprised and have a good time.”
“We hope to have more things in the future and have things in the pipeline, but they’re not ready yet.”
Singh-Blom has also spoken about improving the physics of ARC Raiders to the extent that players could get their hands on some rope to trip some of the larger ARCs. He even went as far as bringing up a comparison with the infamous Hoth battle scene from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.
“Those of us who really work with the physics and make things happen with physics, of course, want more physics in the game at every turn. We want ropes to pull at legs and wires to trip them, like the Hoth invasion scene in Star Wars, where they have the speeders and wrap up the legs. We could do that if we just had better rope physics, right?”
“[The designers] tend to be much more hooked into what the game actually needs, and we tend to be much more hooked into what we want to do with this new tech. Hopefully, we get a good synthesis where we push the boundaries of what we can do, and still do things that make sense for the game.”
ARC Raiders is available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. Embark Studios is currently working on major update, planned for release at the end of April.