Embark's next shooter is ditching free-to-play so devs can 'focus more on the fun' and not 'encouraging players to make purchases'

Arc Raiders is finally coming out of the shadows. First announced back in 2021 as a free-to-play co-op shooter set in a post-apocalyptic world dominated by dangerous robots, Arc Raiders is the second game from Embark Studios, the Nexon-backed house of ex-DICE devs that also makes The Finals. Arc Raiders was developed in parallel with The Finals, and was once meant to be Embark's debut game, but was delayed as priorities shifted to the free-to-play shooter. We didn't hear anything else about Arc Raiders for a long time, until Embark shared last year that the project had pivoted from a purely PvE co-op shooter to a PvPvE extraction shooter.

Today, Embark reintroduced Arc Raiders to the public at the Gamescom Opening Night Live show, and dropped another major update: Arc Raiders is no longer free-to-play, and will instead have a regular price tag.

In a press briefing held last week, executive producer Aleksander Grøndal discussed Embark's reasoning for the change:

«You may remember that we first intended for Arc Raiders to be a free-to-play game,» Grøndal said. «After careful assessment, we decided the premium business model is a great fit for the experience that we're building.»

When asked about why the premium model is perfect for Arc Raiders but not, say, The Finals or Nexon's latest hit The First Descendant, Grøndal's response was surprisingly candid.

«For free-to-play games, they need to strike a careful balance between providing engaging content and encouraging players to make purchases,» he said. «For Arc Raiders, this shift will allow us to focus more on the engagement, fun, and impact on choices with regards to how the game evolves over time. So we can optimize differently in this game, and give out more rewards as the player progresses, as an example.»

I mean, yes, agreed: Free-to-play is nice because it's free to play, but the true cost of entry is a little piece of our souls. To play a live service game in 2024 is to be ferociously hounded by battle pass