With the release of Riven Tides completing Embark Studios’ current roadmap for ARC Raiders, what’s next? As it turns out, a shift in the studio’s content delivery schedule. Instead of monthly updates, it’s now focusing on two major updates per year, with the next, Frozen Trail, slated for October.
“When ARC Raiders launched, we planned to offer monthly updates. The intention was to keep you all engaged, to ensure the game always felt fresh, and to give you reasons to keep braving topside. But once the game was in players’ hands, we saw that the kind of long-term experience we want to create for ARC Raiders requires more transformative updates.
“Over time, we’ve found that the pressure of a monthly cycle limits how impactful these updates can be. You feel it, and we feel it too. Running at that pace isn’t sustainable, or compatible with the bigger ambitions we have for this game.”
The new yearly updates promise to be “larger in scale, more impactful, with the goal to genuinely change how you play the game.” Regular updates, including balance adjustments, bug fixes, events and store updates, will still be delivered at a regular cadence.
For instance, next week brings a new Trader for level 25 and above players who will exchange “high-value items” for “unique rewards, rare items, and cosmetics” that rotate weekly. You can even acquire two new Perks – extra space for the stash and the Expedition Vault to bring up to five items across (including blueprints).
Other improvements are slated for later this year. As for Frozen Trail, it adds the largest map in the game with “layered design and new mysteries.” You’ll also encounter new ARC threats with “fresh designs, and unique behaviors that will challenge Raiders in new ways”; new progression goals for those who have maxed out everything; and perhaps most intriguingly, the first steps to uncovering the ARC’s origin.
The Skill Tree will also see improvements, and you can expect new weapons, cosmetics and instruments. Of course, it’s only “just the beginning” with more details to be revealed later.
“One thing that has become increasingly clear since launch is how important progression and player goals are to the ARC Raiders experience. If you love ARC Raiders, you want more reasons to keep returning to the Rust Belt – and we want to build systems that continue evolving alongside the game,” said Embark.
“Some of the progression improvements we want to implement simply need more development time that we haven’t been able to address properly while running on a monthly cycle. Moving to larger updates allows us to spend more time refining the systems players engage with the most.”
Granted, there’s always the question of whether a live-service game can truly thrive without a regular infusion of content. Time will tell, but you can’t fault the developer for trying to add on to ARC Raiders in more meaningful ways.
