Embark Studios’ extraction shooter Arc Raiders hits PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S on October 30, and in the lead-up to its launch, the studio dropped a “server slam” from October 17-19 that blew up on Steam. In light of this success, design director Virgil Watkins said the playtest was illuminating because of Bungie’s Marathon.
Speaking to PC Gamer, Watkins explained that the two games–Arc Raiders and Marathon–gave Embark Studios a chance to see player reception toward the studio’s divergent designs within the same genre.
“It was very coincidental that they had their test around the time we did. To my knowledge, I don’t think any of us knew that was going to happen,” he said. “It was a very great A/B test for us, because obviously they made decisions that we didn’t, and vice versa. So we could kind of compare and contrast how some of those things shook out.”
Marathon had an initial closed alpha test in late April that resulted in a smattering of issues, from an alleged toxic work culture at Bungie to stolen-art allegations to an indefinite delay out of its September 23 release date. Meanwhile, Arc Raiders had a successful playtest, raking in 189,668 concurrent players and dominating Steam’s top 10 most-played games during that “server slam” weekend.
For Watkins, the disparity between Arc Raiders and Marathon provided Embark Studios the chance to learn about the genre, player expectations, and the game the team is building. Of course, Watkins isn’t dragging Marathon despite it not receiving a warm welcome from Bungie and extraction shooter fans. Instead, he’s rooting for the Destiny makers, saying Marathon’s art style is “evocative” and that he wants to see more from Bungie.
“[It] was quite interesting to follow in what players thought about those certain things, or what did work in their context and didn’t, and what may have worked in ours,” he said. “[…] I’m personally curious to see how that ends up. I hope to see more of that in the future.”
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