Embark Studios has released a major patch for ARC Raiders, preparing for the upcoming "Frozen Path" major update launching on October 8. Meanwhile, Executive Producer Alexander Gröndahl also discussed the game's future plans.
The development team revealed that ARC Raiders draws its primary inspiration from Destiny and Destiny 2, and has established a ten-year development plan aimed at replicating Bungie's previous success with the Destiny franchise.
Alexander Gröndahl stated, "We have laid out our future development plans. We view ARC Raiders as a long journey. We've discussed this before. We want ARC Raiders to last for ten years. This means in-game events should closely resemble the carefully crafted narrative approach seen in the Destiny series.
We want to do the same thing, but in a way specifically tailored to ARC Raiders."
A compelling example is Destiny, which not only stuck to its originally planned ten-year operational cycle but exceeded it, ultimately running for nearly twelve years. This surprised many, as a ten-year development plan seemed overly ambitious for a live-service game.
However, this summer, Sony shut down the servers for Destiny 2 due to declining player numbers and rising operational costs. This was one of the most abrupt shutdowns in the industry, with the game receiving no updates and no announcement of any sequel plans.
The first decade of Destiny revolved around the "Light and Darkness" saga, culminating in a final showdown with The Final Shape DLC. The problem is that interest in the game plummeted after this climax, and a potentially engaging new storyline failed to fully unfold before the project was scrapped.
A natural question arises: Is it feasible to create a ten-year plan for a game like ARC Raiders? According to many reports, the game has lost a significant portion of its player base over the past year. It's important to consider the context of the game's launch: Embark did not initially anticipate such success, and although there has been substantial player churn since, they have already generated considerable profit from initial sales.
For the studio, maintaining a core, active community isn't an issue, as long as costs don't lead to losses and developers have concrete content plans to retain existing players and attract those who have left back into the game.
Take The Finals, another shooter developed by Embark, as an example. Although it didn't receive much attention upon its release in 2023, it still maintains a stable active user base to this day.
ARC Raiders is certainly capable of replicating this long-term support model. In today's gaming industry, ten years is indeed a long time, which holds true for any game, not just ARC Raiders.