Arc Raiders, an extraction shooter and the second game from developer Embark Studios, has taken the world by storm.
This sci-fi, third-person PvPvE experiment launched with little more than a $40 price tag and an enticing premise back in October and almost immediately established itself as one of the biggest games of 2025 – and maybe even 2026. Now, with a post-launch roadmap paving the way with the promise of new map updates and new apocalyptic AI enemies, all eyes are on Embark to see if it can keep the momentum up for months – or maybe even years – to come.
We caught up with CEO Patrick Söderlund to learn more about the surprise success of Arc Raiders, its huge impact on the studio, the battle with cheaters, content updates, hotels in Italy, weird pants, and more as Embark heads into its first full year with a mega hit on its hands.
IGN: I'd like to start with PvE. Like so many others, I'm fascinated by how players have chosen to communicate and interact with one another in the game. What is Embark doing to encourage that behavior and capitalize on the special sauce that makes this element unique?
Patrick Söderlund: I think you said it well. I think it's, maybe, not just capitalizing on the aspects of PvE, but it's capitalizing on the unique sauce that we managed to cook that makes this game special. I think PvE and PvP are both ingredients in that sauce. I could sit there and pretend like, 'Yes, everything that happens in the game and everything that people do in the game, of course, was intended.' That's not the case, of course. When you build a game, and you structure it to a large extent with elements of a sandbox, the stuff that happens in Arc Raiders is just the output, which is incredible and very rewarding for us to see as developers.
What we do is we look at, 'OK, what do we think we should double down on?' I, personally, am touched by all the social elements to this game and the things that make me and, I think, everyone else, believe in humanity again. There's something very kind about that, in many aspects. Just as sometimes PvP can be exciting, frustrating, and thrilling, as well. Those are the aspects that we have to look into. I think we look at it from a holistic perspective and try to understand what more we can do to foster and to nurture both those sides.
One of the discussions that I think is, to some extent, public is 'What's Speranza?' I think Speranza is heavily underutilized, personally. I think that's something that we want to, probably, improve and make into something else. Are there elements of the game where there could be meeting points? Again, these are personal ideas, right now, that I'm basically brainstorming with you, but the Speranza idea is obviously something that I think people have told us about, something that I think could be cool.
Could you meet up with people there? Could that be a social hub to some extent? What more can we do with that? It also deepens what I think is something that players maybe want more of, which is the lore of Arc Raiders. So, we look at it from multiple angles and multiple perspectives, and then, as we build content as quickly and fast as we can, we try and push updates and changes into the game that does more of what we believe is great about this game.
IGN: A quick offshoot: are there any plans for more instruments?
Patrick Söderlund: You're going to laugh. If you ask the team, 'Who has been the biggest advocate for instruments?' They will send you a picture of me. I was so upset that we only had one at launch, and I kept [saying], 'Where are my instruments?' There are so many of them that have been designed and built, and I happen to be in a position of decision-making authority [laughs]. So, the answer is yes, there will be more instruments. For sure. I love them, and they create such cool moments. What the team basically wanted to make sure was that, not only can they be played separately, but they can be played in unison, and that makes sense. That makes it a little bit more complicated for us to add them. Then, they want, obviously, appropriate animations, but all the instruments and everything that you play has been recorded by the people that work at Embark, which is pretty cool.
Frankly, what you say there is something that I believe we need to lean into and do more of. Those types of things. I don't know what another instrument can be, but the joy... When someone told me that we're going to do fireworks, I'm like, 'Why would we do that?' Then I see these crazy things people do with them. I said, 'We need more of this stuff.' I think the things that are maybe not centered around going out there, shooting Arc, looting, or other things, they're just there because they're fun. They're just there to bring joy. That's been, frankly, our biggest surprise with this game. I've read a bunch of articles saying the Arc Raiders is almost like a social experiment, and it kind of is, and I love that.
I genuinely love the fact that that's what it is. I actually had a conversation at dinner three days ago with a very prominent professor in neurology that had gotten to know about the game, and said, 'Listen, you have no idea what you've built. Forget about the game itself.' From just the whole idea of psychological experimentation and social experimentation, and what this game can be. She, a good friend of mine, basically said, 'You should go and do a collab or work with people from the medical field to study what behaviors are triggered in Arc Raiders.'
We may not go that far. That would not be anything to do with the game itself, but it points to something that I believe is so fundamental with this game, and I believe is a big component to why the game has been successful. We knew that we had elements of that, but we could never anticipate that it would take the route it took.
IGN: When I play, I sometimes hear players outright comment on being in 'friendly' or 'unfriendly' lobbies. I'm not sure if this is something you know off the top of your head, but is Embark aware of how much of its playerbase is intentionally taking advantage of the aggression-based matchmaking to place themselves in PvE or PvP-centered lobbies?
Patrick Söderlund: I don't know the answer to that. It's obviously something that we are and need to continue to monitor. That's not the intent of the game's design or our ambition to segment the game in that aspect and make it so that people can sneak in. That's not, of course, what we want. We want you, as a player, to have the experience that you're looking for and makes you happy. We have to deal with the factor of the human beings and real players, which we can't curate that 100%. It's impossible because humans make decisions. I can be the friendliest guy and then, all of a sudden, I can decide to start shooting people – or the opposite. It is just the nature of a multiplayer game, but we understand that is a concern. We understand that could be the case, and sometimes is the case.
We are obviously pushing our systems and thinking about other means of trying to just give players the experience they're looking for without going into any deep details around this, because it is pretty complex, to be honest. You are, frankly, like me for the most part.
I'm PvE to a large extent, but I'm also PvP sometimes because I think it's fun. You have other players that just want to PvP, and for them, it's completely fair. I think the game should cater to all types of players, but what we don't want to have happen is for you to feel like you're in a situation that you don't want or that you didn't wish for. That's kind of the important aspect of this.
IGN: So the aggression-based matchmaking is still something you guys are tweaking every day, then?
Patrick Söderlund: All systems, when it relates to matchmaking, will undergo changes continuously. That's a part of running a live service. We have to, and it's not just that element of our matchmaking. Matchmaking, it's not as simple as, 'Are you someone that shoots a lot of people or not?' It is far more sophisticated than that. The PvP, PvE aspect of it is a small portion of it. There are other aspects, and then we need to take into consideration, how do you play the game? How good are you? You obviously shoot a lot of Arc enemies, we will determine your abilities to shoot in general and your ability to shoot against AI and shoot against other players.
Matchmaking is a complex system as a whole, and as a developer, pretty hard to get right. I've been working with matchmaking systems for the majority of my video game career. All the way from Battlefield to a bunch of different games. Frankly, some of the first multiplayer games, no one even knew what matchmaking was. It was like, 'Play the game. Have fun.' Then, as games and multiplayer games evolved over time, it obviously became a necessity. It's a formula of many, many, many things, where PvE and PvP is one aspect of them, and all of it gets continuously tweaked, of course. There are probably other systems that we are working on, or that we probably should be working on, that will be added as well.
IGN: Embark said it was going to start cracking down on cheaters in January. Could you give me an update on the anti-cheat process and how that's gone so far? If you, again, would happen to have a rough estimate on how many cheaters have been banned?
Patrick Söderlund: I'm not going to give you a specific number, but I can give you ballpark. We have been pretty aggressive on this. The game wasn't prone to so many cheaters in the beginning, but as with all multiplayer games that get successful, this becomes a component, unfortunately. For us as developers, just like a DDoS [Distributed Denial-of-Service] attack, it's one of these things that you just have to try and be a step ahead. To be very honest with you, it's not always easy because the minute you do something, the minute you come up with something, they've come up with something else to do. The banning process is obviously delicate because we need to make sure that we ban people that deserve to be banned, if that makes any sense. If you take general figures, anywhere between 0.1% to 1% of any multiplayer crowd in a large-scale multiplayer game is cheating, and therefore, to some extent, should get a temporary or a longer, or permanent ban.
It could be a minor thing that you're trying. An aim bot that may get you a 24-hour suspension, to doing something that, frankly, means you shouldn't be playing the game anymore. So, we've put together a system. We've started banning players, and why do I know that? Because I see an influx of people trying to get to the studio, and to me. 'Oh, I didn't do anything.' We're seeing a pretty substantial change in that, but I know that we have banned probably tens of thousands of players so far, that I know. Again, we need to make sure that we get it right. That we are fair, and that, in the case where it's clear that we didn't get it right, that we can quickly remedy the situation so that player isn't affected in an unfair fashion or way.
That's why the approach should probably be a little bit more cautious than what I think some people want for that specific reason. Regardless of how cautious you are and what systems are in place, there are always people that are going to feel like they're treated unfairly that, 'I didn't do anything,' and then there are absolutely people that will get caught or that are unfairly banned that we need to deal with. We try and look at it from that perspective, but we will continue to go after people that are doing things in the game that they shouldn't do.
IGN: It sounds like there's a lot planned for the next four months, though I have seen some players dissatisfied with the roadmap. What do you say to the people who saw that four-month plan and feel like it's not enough to keep them coming back?
Patrick Söderlund: First and foremost, what I say is, I hear you. I understand what you're saying, and I would maybe even feel the same if I were you to some extent, because they don't have the details. We opted for a pretty generalized plan for now because, to be very honest, we're developing things as we go. It's a live service, and we know what we're going to do, but we don't actually know whether something that we're working on may or may not make it on time for that particular release. As we get closer to releasing something, you'll see – and I think you've seen it in our latest patch notes – they're pretty detailed. We're not trying to hide anything. We're just trying to be as transparent as we can be at this point in time, but if we get into the studio development schedule and make that public, we're probably going to be in a world of hurt.
People may or may not be as forgiving of some of the things that we are not able to deliver, but our goal is to make sure that this game gets continuous updates, that we build things that people love, and that we do it as much as we possibly can. I feel that if I paid $40 for this game, I would've felt like I'd gotten probably a decent value out of the game. We're not resting.
We did take some time off for Christmas. The team had been working day and night, so they needed, frankly, a rest. I realize that if you're a player, you probably don't care about that, but as the CEO of the studio, I have to care about those types of things and make sure that people can rest and that we are fair to the people that work there. But from the beginning of January, whenever everyone was back, we're working around the clock to deliver as much content as we can to players.
IGN: Generally, what does a map update for Arc Raiders look like? Is this the kind of thing players should expect to be a frequent part of the live-service roadmap going forward?
Patrick Söderlund: The answer is yes, they should. For us, we look at the existing maps as... When you build something, you test it, and you test it extensively, and you do whatever you can, but nothing can compare to 10+ million people playing your game. You can't test for that, and also over time. So, for instance, Stella Montis is a good example of a map that I think has divided our player base to some extent. Some people love it because it's high action. It also did something that we didn't really realize. It changes not only how people play the game, but also the emotions that map evokes compared to others. Sometimes, I don't know if you recognize this, but when I play it - and I do play it - I feel like I'm in a horror movie, and I think that's pretty cool for a game to be able to give me that feeling.
I like for the game to be that, but at the same time... Some maps require an additional area, some maps require a redesign of an area because we don't like the flow of the map. We can monitor everything from our data. For instance, we can see, utilizing a heat map, where action happens and where players mostly spend their time. If there's an area of the map that's not frequently visited, that feels like it's underutilized. How can we change that so that people get a better gameplay experience as they play the game? We for sure want to bring up new content, but we can also evolve and update existing content to make it more fun and better for players, and that's the intent of the map changes.
IGN: There was a recent report going around claiming that Arc Raiders had a $75 million budget. Is that figure something you can confirm or comment on?
Patrick Söderlund: We haven't communicated our development number, and we won't do that, but it's not hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars. Yeah, it's not. I don't know, frankly, where that number came from [laughs]. It didn't come from me, but it's not too far off, if that makes sense.
IGN: I saw it floating around there without the confirmation, so I wanted it just straight from the horse's mouth. That makes sense.
Patrick Söderlund: Yeah. We're not going to give a specific number, but ballpark? Yeah.
IGN: If you could, I'd like for you to comment on how profitable Arc Raiders has been for Embark, or at least how that success has changed the studio and its team for the better.
Patrick Söderlund: Well, you don't have to be a math professor to realize that the game has done well for us and that we're obviously incredibly happy with the performance from a financial perspective. So, of course, it's been very profitable for us. What does it mean for us? Well, first and foremost, it means that... Unfortunately, it's not something that I'm happy about, but our industry has been riddled with layoffs and studio closures for the past, I would say, 24 months. At some other time, we can discuss what I believe is the root cause of that, which is going to take far longer than what we have today, but for us, it means stability, long-term security.
We can live for a long time on the money that Arc Raiders has been generating, and that does give financial security and employment stability for the people that work there. We're growing our studio, we're hiring people, we want to build more of Arc Raiders, we want to build more of The Finals. We also have two new games in development that we hope to finish someday. So for us, it's a sigh of relief, obviously, for any developer, and we're incredibly happy for that, of course, and thankful for everyone that's been supporting us by buying the game. It feels great. Obviously, hopefully, we can have competitive salaries, good bonuses for the people that have done all this hard work and deserve to be taken care of adequately.
IGN: One of the funnier conversations I've seen online had to do with the Abyss set, and specifically its pants.
Patrick Söderlund: [Laughs].
IGN: I guess the natural question I have after that is, what guide or philosophy, if any, does Embark follow in creating cosmetics to add to the game?
Patrick Söderlund: Well, Robert Sammelin, who's the art director, does all this stuff. First and foremost, we want to make sure that everything fits the fiction of Arc Raiders, and that it's something that sits well within the Arc Raiders universe. I mean, there are other games, very successful games out there - The Finals being one of them – in which the IP is designed so it basically happens to be very elastic. You can do whatever the hell you want, and people are like, 'That makes sense. It's completely plausible.' I can be a pink banana, and you can be whatever, and everyone's like, 'That makes sense. It fits the universe. No problem.' Arc Raiders has a more curated lore, curated world, so we have to stick within boundaries slightly to a different extent than maybe The Finals or Fortnite or another game in which Batman can shoot Bart Simpson.
That's not the vision for our game, but at the same time, the game, as it is now and from launch, is the start of the Arc Raiders lore. We obviously want to take it, expand it further, and also the art direction further, but the core of Arc Raiders' art direction and lore will still remain the same. That won't change. I think that's going to be very important. I personally never believed that I would care about what I was wearing in a video game. Listen, I'm just being very honest with you, but I'm like a child. Whenever something new comes out, I need to have it. I swap my gear. I swap my backpacks and things and charms.
I just love to play around with it, and I think many people do as well. So what we have to do is to challenge ourselves and always make sure that we build things that have the right type of edge. Some things just need to be OG - if there's such a thing as that spot in the middle of what Arc Raiders is - but we also need to build things that are on the fringe of what the lore and IP can tolerate without them being a pink banana. That is something that, I think, we've done to some extent, but I think we can probably do more of. Again, we will probably have a slightly segregated user base when it comes to what they like, but that's probably fine given that they're cosmetics. That's probably how it should be. So, yeah. That's kind of where we are.
IGN: I've seen some chatter about map conditions and events. Some players don't like that they are on a rotating schedule. Does Embark have a response or explanation for those players?
Patrick Söderlund: They are on a rotating schedule for multiple reasons. Obviously, we believe that it's a part of how the game should be played, that not everything is available at all times. We believe that creates tension. It's an element of fun. It's a way for us to move people from map to map, which we believe to be important. More so, I saw something online, that there were no events going on. Sometimes it could be, frankly, a malfunction or a bug that's entered the system that we need to fix. We don't want all the map events to be available at all times. That's per design, and that most likely won't change. Sometimes we'll let them stay for longer. Sometimes we run two or three in parallel, but they may be different, but we believe that to be a part of how the game should be experienced.
IGN: With multiple new map conditions coming throughout Escalation, how will more map conditions affect how Embark schedules and rotates events? Will some conditions be rotated out for an extended amount of time as more find their way to the game?
Patrick Söderlund: Probably, yes, some of them will be removed, and some they may return, or they probably will return at some point but maybe slightly updated with a different edge. As we built the game and as we launched the game, we were working very late on the [Electromagnetic Storm], I remember playing that, and I told [executive producer Aleksander Grondal] and the team, I'm like, 'I don't get this. It's not fun. It's just annoying.' That was a previous version of it. I said, 'What's the intent of this stuff? Are we really sure?' I mean, I knew the intent, but, ‘Are we really sure that this is an important part of the game?’
The team said, 'Yeah, we believe so,’ and all of [the map conditions] got tweaked all the way till the end. Cold Snap to me, I'm like, 'That sounds like a dumb idea.' But then, when I played it, for me, I loved it. I thought it was really cool. It gave me an edge. I loved the fact that I got cold, that I need to find shelter. It gave me another meaningful way of playing the game. Some people may not feel that way. I did. The Electromagnetic Storm, for me, still felt a little bit annoying, but some people loved it.
I think, as a game developer, when you build something, you just have to be fine with the fact that that's the case. When we bring something out of rotation, we have to look at the data and say, 'Can we make this more interesting? Can we make this more fun? Let's have it make a comeback and see when that makes sense.' I also know that some of the map conditions will be amazing. Some of them, we won't get right, and we are fine with that. Then, when we don't get them right, we will listen to people, and we will either remove them or change them rapidly.
I really hope that people out there realize that we don't sit on all the answers. We are players and developers. Our goal is to try and make the best damn game we can with all you guys out there, and when we don't get it right, you can trust in us to rectify that and try and get it right immediately. That's kind of what I hope for people to understand. Most of these updates will be free, so just see them as that, please, and see we're really trying hard here to give you even more value than we've given you. I hope people can see it that way.
IGN: There are players in the dozens, it seems, leaving reviews for a hotel in Italy called the Stella Montis Hotel.
Patrick Söderlund: [Laughs].
IGN: I'm wondering if you've seen that, and if you can confirm or deny if the Stella Montis location in the game is named after this hotel.
Patrick Söderlund: I don't know the answer to that question, but [CCO] Stefan Strandberg... [laughs] I'm reading them now. I see. 'I don't recommend this for solo players' [laughs]. I didn't know about that. That's amazing. I feel sorry for the poor hotel, though. I'll probably have to call them and apologize. But no, everything is inspired by locations in Italy. Stefan, it's not a secret, he's an Italian lover. He loves wine. He loves Italy. So there's absolutely something there. We also felt like Italy is a good place for a lot of this to happen for multiple reasons, but I will have to defer to Stefan Strandberg for that specific question. I can find out – I will find out because now I'm intrigued - and I probably will call up that hotel and apologize for what we've caused them. That wasn't intended, but I'll promise to get back to you with a reply on that!
Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg via Getty Images.
Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He's best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).
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