Arc Raiders devs wanted to make it an adventure game more than a shooter: 'We saw more potential in allowing players to explore rather than just shoot'

Until Arc Raiders pivoted away from being a solely PvE boss fight race, production director Caio Braga said in a recent GDC talk that no one could really describe what the game was: "You'd ask someone who would say it was a battle royale versus Arc, or it's a co-op Shadow of the Colossus game, or it's a hero looter shooter… our Arc developers thought the game was a co-op Souls game." I don't know about you, but I don't think that's conducive to actually getting a game out the door.

We had the chance to chat with Braga after his GDC talk last week, and he expanded on the revitalised vision for the game during this pivotal moment—a chance the team was lucky to have.

Referring to the PvPvE extraction reset, Braga explained that "back then, we said we wanted to find an accessible extraction—at that time—shooter." However, the focus quickly shifted more in favour of "adventure" than pure shooter: "We saw more potential in allowing players to explore rather than just shoot."

This calls back to the topic of player agency that Braga mentioned in his GDC talk, saying that "you can basically play the way you want," whether that's "PvP or PvE or role play". That 'adventure' aspect? It's all about freedom and player choice.

While it might sound a little strange at first—after all, Arc Raiders sure does involve a lot of shooting—Embark's onto something. One of its greatest strengths is its sandbox approach, where you're dropped into a complex map with a bunch of equally intricate tools, while you're navigating Arcs and completing tasks. Other players are potential obstacles, or (generally more likely) friends, leading to some of the best social sim moments I've ever had in a game.

Compared to Bungie's Marathon, I'd say, yeah, Arc Raiders is more of an adventure game than it is a shooter. There are some rounds where I won't shoot a single bullet because I'm just hunting for mushrooms or trying to complete a specific quest. And it's certainly the most approachable extraction game on the market, no doubt the cause of its unexpected success.