If you’ve watched the Game Awards 2021 then you’ll know that a big video game has been revealed. The new Embark studio introduced us to ARC Raiders, a titanic project led by DICE alumni. We will explain everything to you.
As every year, the Game Awards 2021 kept their promises, offering us an evening full of rewards and announcements, a real spotlight on the future of the gaming industry during a ceremony. However, among the many creations that were presented during Geoff Keighley’s party, there are several that have captured all attention. Among them is ARC Raiders, the new project from the equally recent Embark studio. This is a futuristic, free-to-play, mid-budget third-person shooter developed by an independent studio. In short, a completely normal announcement for a Game Awards night, but one that arouses a lot of excitement. We explain why.
Embark Studio, or DICE 2.0
And yes, because the essence of the particularity of ARC Raiders lies above all in the studio which develops it. Embark Studios is a Swedish development studio, which is unique in that it was founded by former members of DICE, the studio behind the Battlefield series. So, given the fiasco that was the release of Battlefield 2042, nothing too exciting you might say, but that’s the subtlety of the matter; the founders of Embark Studios left DICE long before the FPS license went downhill. In other words, they were the ones in command of the last “good” Battlefields. We find at Embark Studios the controversial Patrick Söderlund, long at the head of the foreign studios of Electronic Arts or Magnus Nordin, former technical director for EA. Players therefore expect to find the artistic touch and the touch of madness that made the Battlefields of the 2010s the successes imprinted in our memory.
ARC Raiders trailer
What kind of gameplay will we find in ARC Raiders?
If we could see some gameplay images in the ARC Raiders presentation trailer, the veil has not yet been fully lifted on all of its content. From the game from Embark Studios, we know that it is a cooperative third-person shooter. Moreover, if we are to believe the images of the trailer, the game will accommodate more than four players. In ARC Raiders you and your squad take on the role of ARC raiders, soldiers of fortune seeking to protect the people of the ARC, a mechanized and ruthless threat from outer space. The game will be completely free-to-play and will have equipment management and crafting features.
What release date for ARC Raiders?
For the moment no exact release date has been announced by the teams at Embark Studios. We know that the game will be available completely for free in 2022, and that it will be released on PC via the Epic Games Store and Steam, and on next-gen consoles (PS5 and Xbox Series X | S).