While many players had already begun complaining about this change in sound effects and alerts, some even went as far as creating an entire petition, asking Embark Studios to bring back Rocketeer’s original sounds. The petition had even managed to get more than 5,000 upvotes.

Thankfully, it looks like the studio was listening. A new update has begun rolling out to all players, and among its patch notes is confirmation that Rocketeer’s combat alert sounds being changed were due to an issue that has now been fixed. The update has also changed the movement speed for Rocketeers and Vaporizers so that the two ARC types “don’t behave strangely while idling. For more details about the various fixes brought in by the latest update, check out the full patch notes below.

The Flashpoint update, released last week, has been the latest major content drop for ARC Raiders. It brought with it an entirely new type of map condition, dubbed ARC Operations, beginning with Close Scrutiny. In this new condition, a new object, dubbed the Assessor, can be found on the map.

Flashpoint also brought in a range of new weapons:the Legendary Energy shotgun Dolabra, and the Rare medium ammo SMG Canto. The new shotgun can make quick work of enemies in close-range fights while also giving players the chance to increase their range thanks to its variable focus feature. The SMG, on the other hand, focuses on close-quarters combat and can be useful against ARCs as well as Raiders.

ARC Raiders is available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. For more on what to expect from the game in the future, check out what the studio wants to do with “better rope physics.”

ARC Raiders 1.23.0 patch notes:

ARC:

• Fixed an issue that caused Rocketeers to use an incorrect combat alert sound.

Gameplay:

• Fixed an issue where two Trigger ’Nades would sometimes deal three times the damage when detonated next to each other.
• Fixed an issue that would cause items to not be used as soon as possible when holding fire and swapping to them.
• Fixed an issue where weapons and items would fire automatically.
• Fixed a shoulder swap issue where the camera would stay only on one side.
• Fixed an exploit where an anvil splitter could be used without the penalty for dispersion.
• Barricades can no longer be placed on Ziplines.

Maps:

• Fixed an issue where players could get set on fire outside of the locked room in Medical Research on Stella Montis.
• Fixed a spot on Stella Montis where players could be shot through the floor.
• Fixed an issue where some staircases were missing in Buried City.
• Fixed some instances where the code printer could not be interacted with during Locked Gate.

Close Scrutiny:

• Changed the movement speed for Rocketeers and Vaporizers so they don’t behave strangely while idling.
• Fixed an issue where reconnected players would not see Assessor platforms correctly.
• Fixed an issue where Vaporizers would get stuck when getting close to an Assessor.
• Fixed an issue that would prevent an Assessor from flying back into orbit. Fixed an issue where breach platforms could break on an Assessor when spamming the Breach & Search prompts preventing it from returning to orbit.
• All ARC summoned by the Assessor will now correctly leave the area and despawn if they remain idle for a long time.
• Pinging an Assessor in the map screen now correctly reflects the actual location.
• Fixed an issue where players could get stuck when jumping from one platform to another on an Assessor.
• Fixed a spot in Buried city where an Assessor and a Probe could land in the same spot.

Other:

• Fixed an issue where the weapon upgrade UI would show incorrect upgrade tiers.
• Fixed an issue that caused fully transparent helmet visors.
• Fixed some instances where certain visual effects could cause crashes. We are continuing to investigate all cases that cause crashes.

Speaking to GamesRadar+ at GDC, Martin Singh-Blom, who leads Embark’s machine learning research, has outlined how the studio remains determined to give its players as many options as it can despite pushing unpredictability and a sense of danger as they venture out on a run. He even pointed to an iconic scene from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back as a source of inspiration.

“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?”

It would certainly be thrilling to bring an ARC down with nothing but cables. However, there are limitations to what the studio can do, especially when considering the capabilities of current-gen gaming platforms. There are also concerns about resource-intensive additions arising from such pitches.

“They (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.”

It’s a position that’s quite aligned with Nexon’s intended use of AI for the game, while the studio turns its attention to honing its crafting systems for a more polished experience. Knowing that the brains behind a very successful extraction shooter are looking to push their boundaries, and those of modern gaming with them, is exciting, but we’ll have to wait and see how that manifests.

As to the reason behind its implementation, Embark Studios said, “A lot of you pointed out that gathering missing materials for a craft was more work than it should be. You already knew where to get what you needed, maybe from recycling something you had lying around, or picking it up from Celeste, but jumping through multiple screens to actually do it was a pain point. That friction was getting in the way of the fun.”

Keep in mind that it only pulls from what’s currently available and within your means, cutting down on the time spent rifling through menus and sorting through your stash. And while Embark admits that it doesn’t “fix everything,” it’s “always looking at what comes next.”

“Our team is going to keep chipping away at these pain points systematically, and you can expect to see more soon.”

“Soon” may certainly be sooner than expected. While Flashpoint provides a new Arc threat, the new ARC Operations as a map condition, and an update to Scrappy for obtaining more valuable resources, April has even more to look forward to. Riven Tides, the next update, brings the first new map to the game since Stella Montis, alongside a new large ARC, map condition and the next Expedition Window.

The real question is what we can look forward to for the rest of the year. Embark has said it’s working on “multiple maps” across a “spectrum of size” for 2026, so perhaps we’ll see more added in the coming months. As always, stay tuned for updates.

Söderlund has noted that the presence of generative AI presents a unique challenge to the gaming industry. While many developers are using it as a tool, he has said that the companies that best understand the challenge will end up being “the winners” in the race to effectively use AI.

“Every company has a plan; most will get it wrong,” Söderlund said. “They’re committing big investments in tools – but tools won’t help because they’ve misread the challenge. AI may be a race, but the winners won’t be the first movers – the winners will be the ones who understood the challenge. Think of game development as auto mechanics. The tools are available to everyone, but not everyone has the knowledge and experience to use them. That’s where Nexon is different.”

Lee, on the other hand, said that Nexon’s methodology in how it employs generative AI won’t lead to replacing the game developers responsible for a project’s creative aspects. Rather, “it frees them to create, with context.” This “context” is a reference to a collection of data used at Nexon that has been created over many years, dubbed the Mono Lake Initiative.

“Mono Lake makes the intelligence available across everything we build and operate – every developer, every live ops team, every product decision has access to the base of information we’ve accumulated over decades,” he said. “AI without context is just speed. Faster output of a generic outcome. Tools that know nothing about design history, player behavior, or innovation. Without context, AI is a race to the arithmetic middle where everyone’s games look the same. That’s not a competitive advantage. That’s noise, at scale.”

Lee also went on to describe the release of ARC Raiders as a “Trojan horse” that could be used to bring about “a shift in the mindset” about the use of AI technologies and how it “frees developers and live service teams to spend more time thinking and less time typing. More time innovating; less time writing code.”

“It changes how people work,” he continued. “The tools they use, how fast they can move, what they can accomplish. But what goes into our games – the creative content our players actually experience – that remains the work of our developers. Our methodology doesn’t replace creative people, it frees them to create, with context. Today, our best people spend more time making creative decisions – decisions guided by context…context based on billions of player decisions…context that precious few companies can match.”

Nexon’s biggest hit in recent times has been ARC Raiders, which is well known for having launched on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S with AI-generation used for some of its voice acting. However, the company has also been taking steps to remove some of it. More recently, the PvPvE extraction shooter got its Flashpoint update.

We’re not alone in feeling this, we’re sure, and it seems like it’s a clever design choice that leverages how people approach the game, a facet that production director Caio Braga told Games Radar+ was always intended to make its players feel like there was always a threat waiting, even in places they might feel relatively safer. Commenting on “Care Bear” lobbies in which players agree to take a non-hostile approach to each other to secure a safe amount of loot for themselves, Braga was quick to point out that the game’s very design was bound to encourage the more enterprising ones among them to consider breaking the peace at the right moment.

“Even in those servers, I hope they don’t feel fully safe..We never promised that they would be in full friendly lobbies. And humans, right? They can sometimes surprise you, backstab you, or abuse your generosity. There’s all of that that we want to keep existing in this game. So finding a complete break where it’s only PvE is probably something we don’t want to explore at the moment, because we want you to not feel safe.”

Even with Flashpoint being as challenging as it is, a sense of safety is an unwelcome addition to a game that relies on its players looking for any advantage they can in an unforgiving landscape. Embark seems determined to keep things that way, even using its own players’ opinions to ensure the odds are constantly unfavorable to cooperative play.

“We see some trends of players who PvP and start to lose too much, that go more Care Bear. And the opposite: Care Bears start to get a lot of riches and go PvP. So there is all of that. I think that what we see a lot is the two poles being opinionated, which is very good for us, because we end up getting feedback.”

That’s an innovative approach to implementing feedback, and a great way to ensure that ARC Raiders keeps its players coming back for more.

Headlining the update is an entirely new type of map condition, dubbed ARC Operations. The first of these is Close Scrutiny, and will revolve around the presence of a new object in the map, dubbed the Assessor. These objects are accompanied by ARC patrols, and the studio has warned players willing to investigate ARC Assessors to be ready for a fight with their best gear. The new ARC type in the update is a new flying type, dubbed the Vaporizer. The ARC has been described as being among those accompanying the Assessor, and is armed with a laser-based weapon, which it can use thanks to its “idiosyncratic attack patterns.”

There are also a host of new weapons joining the arsenal of ARC Raiders: the Legendary Energy shotgun Dolabra and the Rare medium ammo SMG Canto. The former is useful for taking on ARCs in close-range thanks to a variable focus feature that can be used to fire off either a wide burst or a focused funnel of electricity. The Canto, on the other hand, focuses more on close-quarters combat, being adept at dealing with ARCs and Raiders alike. The weapons are joined by a new deployable device, the Surge Coil, that can periodically electrify its surroundings.

Players will also have a new project to work towards – High Gain Antenna. While not too many details about it have been revealed in the patch notes, the description indicates that this antenna might make some discoveries that end up having a larger impact on the narrative of ARC Raiders.

Along with this, the Flashpoint update brings in several other changes and adjustments to various aspects of ARC Raiders on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. Check out the full patch notes below.

ARC Raiders Flashpoint update patch notes:

What’s New?

• Map Condition Close Scrutiny – ARC Operation
• ARC – Vaporizer
• Legendary Energy shotgun – Dolabra
• Rare Medium Ammo SMG – Canto
• Rare Deployable – Surge Coil
• High-Gain Antenna Player Project
• Shredders added to all maps
• Scrappy Feeding Boost
• Wasp Hunter Set
• The Brigade Set

Patch Highlights

• Increased loot value in all locked rooms with a scaled increase depending on the key rarity.
• Players who build their own loadout are more likely to join fresh servers.
• Crafting Improvements.
• Hide HUD on Console.

Balance Changes

ARC

• Rocketeers will now take less damage from collisions, and will no longer be instantly destroyed upon impact when stunned.
• Reduced the chance for multiple Fireflies to spawn together.
• Decreased the time it takes for ARC to identify players that are very close in-front of them.

Items

• Free Augments can now be recycled into 6 plastic and 6 rubber parts.
• The Firefly Burner has a new extra-spicy functionality.

Maps

• Increased loot value in all locked rooms with a scaled increase depending on the key rarity.
• Increased loot spawns from Baron Husks.
• Players who build their own loadout are more likely to join fresh servers.

Content and Bug Fixes

Animation

• Reduced pose popping when starting to sprint, improved sprint transitions, and refined animations when starting movement from idle.
• Fixed Comet head jitter.
• Fixed an issue where the weapon mesh is misplaced during the automatically triggered animation of re-equipping it after breaching doors.
• Fixed an issue where fire damage would trigger bullet hit reactions.

Audio

• Improved stability of proximity voice chat.
• Removed indoor wind reaction sounds to avoid confusion with player-generated sounds like looting.
• Fixed missing secondary-use audio for the ARC Power Core and restored the use sound when repairing another player’s armor.
• Improved positional audio clarity for other players.
• Opening and closing doors can be heard from farther away.
• Improved directional audio for flying ARC.
• Adjusted directional filtering of sounds increasing clarity of sounds coming from behind the player.
• Improved long-range hit feedback by adding distant variations to bullet impact indicator sounds.
• Considerably reduced weapon audio latency. Windows: Only applies on systems with at least 16 GB RAM.
• Improved responsiveness of continuous-fire weapon audio, reducing delay and desync when releasing the trigger.
• Fixed missing tab navigation sounds in the UI when using a gamepad.

ARC

• Improved behaviour for stunned Comets.
• Improved the ARC target selection to allow switching targets more freely and to “zero in” less on the first target.
• Fixed an issue where flying ARC (especially Fireflies) would spawn inside walls and attack players from outside the walls and floors in Stella Montis.
• All interactions are now disabled when grabbed by a Tick except the interaction to fight it off.

Customization

• Fixed an issue where parts of the Low Bun and Curly Mullet were not animated.
• Fixed an issue where beards would disappear with some headgear.

Gameplay

• Fixed an issue that allowed players to use ziplines or ladders while carrying items (e.g. Field Crate). Carryables are now dropped when grabbing a zipline or ladder.
• Fixed an issue where players who joined near the end of the late-join window could have ARC spawn on them immediately.
• Added gamepad aim assist to Leaper legs and core.
• Fixed an issue where you could take fall damage when attempting to vault on Comets.
• Remote Raider Flares can now be disarmed with the Mine Sweeper skill.
• Fixed an issue where using LMB/RMB while unarmed could delay or prevent equipping a weapon, tool, or quick-use item.
• Fixed an issue where eliminations with Trailblazer or Shrapnel Grenade did not count toward the “Horseshoes and Hand Grenades” achievement.

Maps

• Shredders are now added to all maps (only during certain map conditions on Dam Battlegrounds).
• Fixed an instance where players could go out of bounds in the tutorial.

Dam Battlegrounds

• Added more Sentinel spawn points.
• Adjusted area coverage for Leapers, Bombardiers, and Bastions to improve navigation.
• Fixed various clipping, floating objects, and terrain gaps.

Buried City

• Fixed multiple spots where players could get stuck.
• Added more Sentinel spawn points and made spawns more consistent.
• Opened up navigation on some Old Town streets for ARC to move more freely.
• Adjusted area coverage for Leapers, Bombardiers and Bastions to improve navigation and variety.
• Increased the variety of Leaper, Bombardier, Bastion and Rocketeer distribution during the Night Raid map condition.

Blue Gate

• Added more Sentinel spawn points.
• Adjusted area coverage for certain big enemies to improve navigation.
• Reduced the number of Comets during the Hurricane map condition.
• Locked Gate:
  • Some side entrances now unlock with the main gate,
  • Security Codes now come from Code Printers instead of containers,
  • Security Codes expire upon extraction.

Spaceport

• Resolved several instances of floating objects and clipping.
• Added more Sentinel spawn points.
• Fixed players getting stuck in elevator shafts.
• Added more mushroom spawn locations to improve resource availability.
• Increased chances for high-tier loot from completing the rooftop activity during the Launch Tower Loot map condition.
• Added a delay after the final antenna is activated before the bunker opens during Hidden Bunker map condition.

Stella Montis

• Fixed a missing wall in the Security Lobby.

Movement

• Fixed an issue where characters did not immediately face ladders when aligning to climb.
• Fixed an issue where sprint could be retriggered and canceled when holding fire and sprint together.

Performance

• Improved texture streaming to reduce stalls and make streaming more responsive on lower-spec systems; corrected streaming calculations to respect component scale.
• Optimized texture streaming calculations to improve performance and reduce stuttering.
• Optimized CPU performance.

Rendering

• Reduced shadow popping.
• Reduced popping from vegetation and debris.
• Fixed flickering shadows from vegetation.
• Upgraded Intel XeSS to SDK version 2.1.1.
• Upgraded AMD FSR to SDK version 2.1.0.
• Tweaked AMD FSR for improved responsiveness and image clarity.

Quests

• Fixed items being incorrectly consumed during interactions in the “After Rain Comes” quest.
• Fixed effect syncing issues in the quest “A Dead End”.
• Reworked quest tracking to prevent an issue that could block quest progression in some cases, and to improve visualization. Progress bars now indicate what progress may be lost if you fail to extract.

Stability

• Resolved a crash that could occur in the tutorial.
• Fixed a rare crash that could occur when loading into a Practice Range session.

UI

• Crafting improvements:
  • Quickly acquire missing materials directly from the crafting view.
  • Recycling, refining, or purchasing missing materials is now available in the same window to complete crafting.
• All party members can now see active map conditions while in Speranza. Members can also ping destinations they’d like to depart to.
• Checking one matchmaking option (Fill Squad or Solo vs. Squad) now disables the other.
• Matchmaking timer is now shown at the bottom of all screens next to the selected destination.
• Fixed an issue where stash overflow could be shown incorrectly when detaching mods from the inspect screen.
• Fixed inverted gamepad camera zoom on Decks and Store screens.
• Fixed missing action text for several throwable items; prompts now display correctly.
• Added an option to change HUD visibility mode in Gameplay Options for console (also available via F10 on PC).
  • These HUD options are:
    • Visible
    • Crosshair and Interactions Only
    • Crosshair Only
    • Hidden
• The inventory screen now shows stash value.
• Pinging a Barricade now shows the ping by the crosshair instead of offset.
• Emote tiles in character customization now show a wheel icon indicating which slot each emote is equipped in.
• The store tab now shows a new items marker when the store rotation changes.
• The purchase preview dialog now displays a detailed breakdown of bundle contents.
• The customization screen now shows a small preview of the bundle.

VFX

• Fixed an issue where Sentinel’s laser was shorter than its sight range in some cases.
• Fixed ARC damage visual effects sometimes being visible through walls under certain circumstances.

Known Issues

• The Firefly may sometimes disappear after going idle and drop an incendiary grenade.
• The persistent sound of a destroyed Comet can be heard occasionally.
• Shredders float to the ceiling in some rooms of the Hidden Bunker
• ARC may spawn inside the geometry on The Dam.
• There is an invisible collision under the Turret at a few locations on Buried City and Spaceport.
• Flying ARC may sometimes appear stuck in idle.
• Helmet visors become transparent after the first extraction.
• ‘Purchase Raider Tokens’ page may appear in front of the inbox and profile page when switching between them.
• Player animations may appear broken when interrupting a search of the Baron Husk.
• Pressing fire with an empty mag triggers a reload, and once the reload is complete, the weapon automatically fires a shot without an additional trigger press.
• When equipping quick-use items, clicking too rapidly may prevent them from activating – you need to release and press again for the input to register.
• The top stairs in Grandioso apartments are not visible even though the collision is there.

Imagine a flying ARC. Now imagine one with a laser. If that sounds like a nightmare, then good luck, especially in the new ARC Operations. This map condition adds objectives like Close Scrutiny, where the majority of the loot is in strange new probes called Assessors. Careful, though – it attracts more than enough attention from the rest of the map to want a piece.

You’ll have new weapons to craft for an edge, including the Canto SMG for close encounters; the Dolabra shotgun, which has two firing modes (including an electric blast); and the Surge Coil, a deployable that will shock anything that enters its perimeter. Players can also partake in a new Project, High Gain Antenna, and even obtain more varied loot from Scrappy by feeding him certain items.

Check out all the details for Flashpoint here, and expect even more changes, including balance updates, when it drops on March 31st.

“We do use the same [process],” he explained. “When we did the reset, it was the whole team, right? We were 25 people. So it’s easier to say, these are the top problems. We’re 120 [now], so what happens is, it’s just spread a little bit more. It’s not the whole team. It’s more like a problem goes to the UX team. They do the same, but it’s for UX. So the top three problems, top 10 improvements, and what’s good enough, we sign off together, and then they start to work on the problem-solving. Sometimes we say this problem is general, every team has to contribute, so it’s a bit different because of the size, where it’s basically multiplying that for the five internal teams.”

This results in the team working on fixing problems in a reactive manner, which tends to work “in parallel” with other members of the team working on major content drops. As for what kinds of problems the studio has identified for now, he noted that game balance is always on the studio’s mind, along with having to identify what kind of new content would be appropriate for players that have already accomplished everything else ARC Raiders has to offer.

“Balancing is always, not really a problem, but something we keep top of mind all the time,” said Braga. “That is one thing. It’s all new to us, the live environment with this amount of players. We’ve been trying to identify what are the most impactful updates we can give to players. There are a few things that we see that are more engaging and some others less engaging, and because we’re not a huge team, optimizing for that impact is something that we are learning and trying to do better and better in every update.”

Ultimately, he noted that the studio also wants to continue ramping up the challenges offered by ARC Raiders. “It is one of the things we want to keep working on. We want to challenge the players,” he explained. “Especially the players that are reaching the end of our content. We want more for them. I want them to have more to do, and because they are at the end of it, it’s also important that we challenge them more and more. It is something we want to continue doing, but always giving players tools as well so that other players can partake of the fun.”

ARC Raiders is available on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. Since the title has done incredibly well since its release, parent company Nexon celebrated the fact by promoting studio CEO Patrick Söderlund to the role of executive chairman.

The roadmap, however, promises a new ARC threat, so it’s unknown whether it’s the Shredder on other maps or something else entirely. It would be a challenge regardless, especially with a new map condition (potentially thunderstorms) joining the fray. Other notable additions with Flashpoint include a new Player Project and an update to Scrappy, the resourceful rooster.

More details and teasers should be available closer to the update’s launch, so stay tuned. In the meantime, ARC Raiders’ Steam rating has taken a turn due to various issues over the past few weeks. While still rated “Very Positive” overall, the recent rating has dropped to “Mostly Positive” with 78 percent of accompanying user reviews giving it the thumbs-up.

Steam player counts are still solid, with the recent 24-hour peak hitting 125,795 concurrent, though it’s a big drop from when the year started. Maybe the Flashpoint update will help revitalize the player base. Either way, it’s set to continue for quite a long time, especially after selling 14 million copies and exceeding Nexon’s expectations.

Speaking to Games Industry, Patrick Söderlund, who heads Embark, clarified that the studio’s voice actors are paid for their time as well as for the rights to use their voice in situations where their presence isn’t possible, or absolutely required.

“We pay our actors for all time spent with us in the booth and continue to bring many of them back as we carry on updating the game…For select usage, we also pay them for the approval to license their voices through text-to-speech for lines that aren’t as essential to the immersion of the experience, mostly ping system audio.”

However, the studio has apparently invited its cast back for some re-recording, thereby minimising the amount of AI-generated lines being used in the game. Söderlund had something to say on that, too.

“We re-recorded some of the lines post-launch and made them with real voices. There is a quality difference. A real professional actor is better than AI; that’s just how it is.”

We’re inclined to agree, and it’s heartening to see a studio step out in front of player complaints and take efforts to conduct some meaningful damage control in the face of valid complaints. It wouldn’t be the first time for Embark to do so, and it seems that the studio is dedicated to sustaining the momentum that its take on extraction shooters has garnered since its release. Here’s to hoping for more good things to come from Embark, and, of course, ARC Raiders.

For more details on what’s next, check out the developer’s roadmap here.