If you've been playing ARC Raiders since it launched in October 2025, then you've seen evolve into a friendlier sort of extraction shooter. One where players have chosen to play a PvE game, only firing their weapons at robotic ARC enemies instead of other Raiders. Now, a new report from Insider-Gaming points to developer Embark Studios testing a first-of-its-kind PvE map condition called 'Rebellion Incident.' The report claims that the map condition is being tested in China, with discussion of the new map condition having been spotted on Chinese social media platforms. Rebellion is one of two map conditions being […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/embark-studios-testing-pve-arc-raiders-map-conditions-in-china/

While Embark Studios have continuously updated ARC Raiders with new content and updates, general sentiment surrounding the popular extraction shooter has waned somewhat over the past months. As a result, the team have now announced that they are shifting their live-service plans, replacing smaller more consistent updates with “major updates twice a year.”

Following the successful launch of ARC Raiders last year, Embark Studios shared a detailed 2026 roadmap, confirming that they planned to release updates on a monthly basis. While the team have managed to maintain this promise so far, reactions to the updates themselves have been less-than-stellar.

It appears the team are listening, with Embark Studios taking to their blog to confirm some pretty wide-sweeping changes, writing:

“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.”

Describing this previous schedule as not “sustainable, or compatible with the bigger ambitions we have for this game,” Embark are now shifting strategies, confirming that “going forward, we've made the decision to release major updates twice a year – larger in scale, more impactful, with the goal to genuinely change how you play the game.”

Of course, a dedicated team will persist to ensure that day-to-day balance changes, updates and tweaks can continue to be released at regular intervals. That said, in terms of substantial content updates, these will now come far less often, but should be more exciting.

Offering a tease on what to expect from this new release schedule, the team confirmed that the next major update will arrive in October. Dubbed the ‘Frozen Trail’, this content drop will introduce:

• A new landscape in the Rust Belt (the largest so far)
• The biggest ARC Operation so far (with new enemies, fresh designs and more)
• New progression system
• An improved skill tree
• New weapons, items and more

KitGuru says: What did you think of ARC Raiders’ current live-service approach? Did it need an overhaul? Are you more or less hopeful for the future of the game in the wake of these changes? Let us know down below.

ARC Raiders was one of 2025's biggest games, with millions of copies sold and, for a time, hundreds of thousands of players diving into the Rust Belt every day on Steam alone. While some of its momentum has waned, developer Embark Studios is looking to address the problems the community has recently had with the game, and has announced a new strategy for how ARC Raiders will evolve going forward. The long and short of it is that Embark is moving away from its previous cadence of updates for ARC Raiders, and that the third-person extraction shooter will now be […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/arc-raiders-embark-studios-building-for-long-term-major-changes/

Arc Raiders launched to huge success in late 2025 but the early months of 2026 have caused frustration for players. At this point, the game's user score on Steam has dropped to Mixed, due to an influx of negative reviews. 

Arc Raiders has been losing players consistently since January, just a couple of weeks after the Cold Snap update, which launched in late December. Since January, the game has dropped from a 400K+ peak concurrent player count on Steam to less than 100K in May 2026.

The reason? Fans have not been satisfied with the post-launch content updates. The Riven Tides update just dropped for Arc Raiders and after a few days, this update has resulted in an influx of negative user reviews on Steam, bringing the overall score down to ‘Mixed'. At launch, Arc Raiders had garnered a Very Positive user score.

One of the top complaints seems to be around game balancing and the developers taking the wrong lessons from player complaints. One example given in a top-rated Steam review says that when players complained about high-tier weapons having bad durability, Embark Studios decided to make lower-tier weapons weaker, rather than giving buffs to high-tier gear. Another top-rated user review also makes the claim that Embark is making its balance decisions based off spreadsheets rather than gameplay feel, resulting in puzzling decisions.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Embark Studios has faced similar issues before. It previously struggled to keep players engaged with The Finals despite a stellar launch. Maybe it is time for the studio to rethink its approach to post-launch content. 

A blind test was conducted by Computer Base, which revealed that gamers often prefer DLSS 4.5 image quality to be superior to FSR 4.1. Out of Seven Games, NVIDIA DLSS 4.5 Wins Six Times in Blind Test Conducted by Computer Base, Suggesting Gamers Believe DLSS 4.5 is Superior to FSR 4.1 NVIDIA DLSS 4.5 is the leading upscaling technology from Team Green, while FSR 4.1 remains the flagship upscaler by Team Red. We have seen how incredibly powerful these upscaling technologies are in terms of visual quality. Unlike previous versions, both offer the best possible visuals through better sharpening, reduction […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/nvidia-dlss-4-5-crushes-amd-fsr-4-1-in-blind-test-winning-six-of-seven-games/

Following the explosive launch of Embark Studios’ ARC Raiders late last year, the team shared an official roadmap detailing the live-service extraction shooter’s Q1 2026 plans. With their Flashpoint Update coming to an end, the team have now detailed Arc Raiders’ next big release – with Riven Tides officially arriving today alongside enhanced PSSR support on PS5 Pro.

Detailing the latest update via their blog, the team at Embark Studios shared everything that players can expect from Riven Tides, writing: “Raiders, Scout reports have been returning from Riven Tides. Fragments of observation logs, faded photographs, and footage of the coast have finally made their way back to Speranza.”

Available to experience in full from today, the update includes a number of major additions:

• New Map: Riven Tides
• New Enemy: Arc Turbine
• New minor Map Condition: Beachcombing for buried loot
• New items for added traversal:
  • Crash mat
  • Powered Descender
• New event: Last Resort
• New Raider Project: Avian Alarm
• New cosmetics

As mentioned, alongside these additions, PlayStation 5 Pro users are set to be treated to a much-improved experience visually, with Sony’s upgraded PSSR 2 bringing an impressive amount of added detail and perceived sharpness.

Embark Studios are continuing to add to Arc Raiders at a consistent pace, but with the Riven tides update being the final piece of their previously-released ‘Escalation’ roadmap, it will be interesting to see what the team have planned for the rest of 2026 and beyond.

Discuss on our Facebook page HERE.

KitGuru says: Are you looking forward to today’s update? How big of a deal is the new PSSR to you? What do you hope to see from future updates? Let us know down below.

ARC Raiders is the latest game to add to the list of games that support PSSR 2, the latest generation of PlayStation's upscaling technology. Embark Studios confirmed that tomorrow's Riven Tides update for the extraction shooter will not only add a new map, new map condition, new items, a new enemy, a new event, and new cosmetics, but it'll also bring "meaningful" visual improvements thanks to PSSR 2 that PS5 Pro players will notice "immediately." Announced with a new PlayStation Blog post, members of Embark's technical team praised the improvements afforded by PSSR 2, with engine lead Robert Kihl saying, […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/arc-raiders-pssr-2-support-ps5-pro-riven-tides-update/

The BAFTA Game Awards 2026 are here to round out the last major awards show focusing on games from 2025, and while we're all expecting Clair Obsucr: Expedition 33 to take home the top prize, that's not entirely a foregone conclusion. Is what could be said if Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 didn't win the award for Best Game, but as the awards are now wrapped up, Sandfall Interactive was once again the last team left on stage before the show ended, taking home Best Game and adding another GOTY award to its already impressive supply. But this was not a […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/bafta-game-awards-2026-winners-list/

You might recall that just two short years ago in February 2024, Disney invested $1.5 billion in Fortnite maker Epic Games, with grand plans to create a persistent Disney universe within Fortnite based on Disney franchises. We've already seen part of this deal bear fruit with the introduction of Disnyeland in Fortnite, and according to a new report from Bloomberg, we're due to get the next fruit in November 2026. And according to the report, it's an incredibly significant release for Epic, because it is meant to mark the beginning of its comeback tour. Epic Games recently laid of 1,000 […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/epic-games-disney-game-november-2026-shooting-game-along-the-lines-of-arc-raiders/

Nexon, the parent company behind Embark Studios and its massive PvPvE extraction shooter hit ARC Raiders has long been a supporter of AI and Generative AI (GenAI) entering the game development workflow. It was Nexon's CEO, Junghun Lee, who last year said that players should assume all game makers are using GenAI, which got a rousing rejection from several game developers at the time. So it's no surprise that in the company's latest Capital Markets Briefing, Lee and the company's recently appointed executive chairman (and head of Embark Studios), Patrick Söderlund, both boasted about how Nexon's approach to AI and […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/nexon-says-ai-approach-doesnt-replace-creative-people-it-frees-them-to-create/

During a recent financial presentation, Nexon President, Junghun Lee, commented on the recent successes and failures with its online games over the past year. Interestingly, The First Descendant was named as a struggling title, despite its initially strong launch. 

Lee was commenting on Nexon's ability to “sustain relationships with players”. When assessing titles that didn't hit the mark, The First Descendant and Dungeon&Fighter Mobile were listed as games with retention challenges, going as far as to say that The First Descendant had “no staying power” after its strong launch.

While these titles struggled, Lee also listed a number of significant wins for Nexon. For starters, the MapleStory franchise has achieved 43% year-on-year growth, and the Dungeon&Fighter PC game has also been a hit in China and Korea.

As you would expect, Arc Raiders is also listed amongst the publisher's biggest achievements, enabling Nexon to become a more “globally competitive” company.

KitGuru Says: Have you played The First Descendant at all since launch? 

Following the explosive launch of Embark Studios’ ARC Raiders late last year, the team shared an official roadmap detailing the next 12 months of the live-service extraction shooter’s update plans. Ahead of its arrival later today, the team have shared everything you need to know about ARC Raiders’ Flashpoint Update.

Releasing a blog post to detail all of the upcoming content coming to ARC Raiders with the Flashpoint Update, the team at Embark have shared everything players will need to know upon its arrival later today. Partially teased in the initial roadmap, the Flashpoint Update is set to introduce the following:

• New Major Map Condition – ARC Operations (Close Scrutiny)
  • Features less loot around the map
  • Increased importance on the ARC Assessor
• New ARC Threat – Vaporizer
  • A flying ARC type featuring “devastating laser attacks and idiosyncratic attack patterns”

• New Weapons and Items
  • Canto submachine gun with medium ammo
  • Dolabra energy shotgun with a variable focus
  • Surge Coil deployable defensive device
• New Project – High Gain Antenna
• You can now increase the types of loot Scrappy collects by feeding him particular items
• Enemy placement adjustments
• Crafting improvements with less tab-switching required to craft gear

Of course, the update will also launch alongside a suite of new paid cosmetics – a staple for pretty much all live-service titles at this point. Regardless, the Flashpoint Update represents the next stage in ARC Raiders’ first year on the market. It will be interesting to see how players respond to these changes and additions.

Discuss on our Facebook page HERE.

KitGuru says: What do you think of the Flashpoint Update? What feature are you most looking forward to? Do you enjoy the game’s various Map Conditions? Let us know down below.

As Steam puts its Spring Sale in the rear view, the Epic Games Store has just kicked off its own Spring Sale, giving PC players another chance to grab some great games for heavy discounts, just on a different digital storefront. Some of the most notable sales include titles like ARC Raiders and Borderlands 4, which are 20% off and 30% off, respectively, though some games are as much as 80% off. Nearing that level of discount includes iconic titles like Red Dead Redemption 2: Ultimate Edition, which is a whopping 80% off (it's also 75% off if you just […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/epic-gams-store-spring-sale-2026-arc-raiders-gta-v-borderlands-4/

Embark Studios is about to release its next major update for ARC Raiders, with this one called the Flashpoint Update. It adds a new ARC enemy to the game, two new weapons, a new kind of map condition called ARC Operations, and it all goes live tomorrow, March 31, 2026. ARC Operations are new map conditions, and the first one, Close Scrutiny, seems meant to encourage more PvP action. When Close Scrutiny is live in a map, there's less loot available in that zone, but somewhere lies a new kind of machine called an Assessor. It doesn't seem to be […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/arc-raiders-flashpoint-update-new-arc-weapons-map-condition-more/

ARC Raiders developer Embark Studios and one of its co-founders and now former chief content officer Rob Runesson following allegations of sexual misconduct on Runesson's part towards a popular female streamer known for playing Embark's other major live service game, The Finals. First reported by IGN, the allegations initially appeared last month in a livestream, where an anonymous user submitted them to streamer Balise, who read them live on stream. The Google Doc Balise reads through was later recreated and shared online through The Finals community. In the document, the anonymous user who submitted them claims to have been aware […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/arc-raiders-dev-embark-studios-parts-ways-with-co-founder-amidst-sexual-misconduct-allegations/

Arc Raiders was easily one of 2025 biggest surprise hits, with the PvPvE extraction shooter having sold over 14 million copies since the game’s launch in October while continuing to see strong levels of engagement from players. Perhaps the biggest stain on the game was its use of gen-AI for its voice acting – some of which has since been replaced.

Taking part in an interview conducted by the publication Gamesindustry.biz, Embark Studios CEO Patrick Söderlund spoke on the development of Arc Raiders, its relatively small budget and the size of the team itself.

The full interview can be found HERE, but by far the most interesting part pertains to Arc Raiders’ use of gen-AI. While the team have addressed this previously, Söderlund spoke on their evolving use of the technology, stating:

“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.”

Despite the use of AI, Embark admits that nothing can replace a voice actor’s talent, claiming: “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.”

Söderlund continued, “We look at [AI] first and foremost as a production tool. We can test things internally. We can test 15 different lines without recording them, and then we know what to record. It's also a way for us to work, not replace actors. We don't necessarily believe in replacing humans with AI all the time.”

AI in art remains a contentious topic, and one which is changing all the time as the tech itself evolves. Here’s to hoping that eventually all of Arc Raider’s AI voices are replaced by real talent.

KitGuru says: What do you think of Arc Raiders’ use of AI? Is it distracting? Let us know down below.

ARC Raiders is one of the biggest successes in the video game industry lately, and the game's story is one that keeps getting better the more we hear about it. Former EA and DICE developers coming together to make the games they wanted to make, taking their time to build ARC Raiders, having the wherewithal to give it time to be worked (and reworked) while still getting another project over the line, before it was ready for prime time this past October. After learning hours ago that Embark almost went back on its initial pivot from PvE to PvPvE back […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/embark-studios-made-arc-raiders-at-fraction-of-the-cost-of-aaa-budgets-not-with-ai-but-old-ways-of-working/

Embark Studios' smash success of 2025, ARC Raiders, had a long development road that got it to being one of the most popular games on the market today. It was initially meant to be the studios' debut project, before it was delayed, and Embark focused on releasing what would become The Finals first. All the way back in 2021, when it was first announced, it was intended to be a free-to-play co-op shooter where you worked together with other players to take down the giant ARC robots. Less than a year after its reveal at The Game Awards 2021, it […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/embark-studios-almost-pivoted-arc-raiders-back-to-pve-after-first-pivot-to-pvp/

Embark Studios' latest update for ARC Raiders isn't your bog-standard fixes or new content release. Instead, it's an update that the team rushed out the door this morning after a report from tech blogger and systems engineer Timothy Meadows pointed to an incident where two ARC Raiders players' private Discord DMs (direct messages) appeared in a game log file. Per Meadows report, the game's Discord SDK captured private messages between two users and a Discord Bearer token. It was a massive over-extension of the data that Embark collects through ARC Raiders' Discord SDK, an issue that is thankfully now fixed […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/arc-raiders-latest-update-fixes-massive-security-flaw-private-discord-dms-collected-by-embark/