Arc Raiders' huge success gives Embark the "opportunity to do bigger things" and cook up a more "ambitious" roadmap

12.4 million. That's how many copies of Arc Raiders Embark has shifted so far - a monumental achievement for a multiplayer game that, this time last year, wasn't really on most people's radar. Even I, as someone who enjoyed Embark's first game, The Finals, and had a close eye on Arc Raiders from the beginning, would've never predicted this level of success. But what happens when your game becomes more popular than you anticipated? How does over 12 million sales change your future? That's what I wanted to find out when I spoke with the game's design director, Virgil Watkins. He admits that Arc Raiders' success "opens doors" for Embark, and the studio now has the "opportunity to do bigger things" than it initially planned. While an "ambitious" roadmap is on the way, Watkins teases what the next few months may look like for players, and also tells me that my dream future feature was almost a reality.

I've been completely hooked on Arc Raiders, if you haven't already guessed from my regular ramblings on the game. In my view, Black Ops 7 is the best Call of Duty we've had in ages, and Battlefield 6 is a monumental return to form for that series, but right now, neither can get much of a look-in on my gaming schedule. There are, for sure, some issues to solve and systems to refine, but on the whole, Arc Raiders is excellent, and is deserving of those eyewatering sales figures.

The game now has a colossal and varied audience to cater to. You've got the jolly PvE players who'll gladly walk by you without even thinking of shooting you in the back, the more than one million players who grinded to wipe their accounts in the first Expedition, and the bloodthirsty PvPers who relish Arc Raiders' combat above all else. Watkins says the game's success has given Embark "resources that we might not have had otherwise," which should help in keeping everyone happy. At the time of our conversation on January 8, he says that Embark's in the process of reevaluating and reprioritizing its future plans now that it has the "opportunity to do bigger things." It's looking at areas where it could expand, and being more "ambitious" with its roadmap - something players should be able to see soon.

Given that its plan for Arc Raiders' future is being re-shaped right now, I struggle to get much in the way of cold, hard information from Watkins about what's in store, but he does drop some hints and teases about what the next few months could look like.

"The ambition is that we're going to have several map updates throughout the year, and that's on a couple different scales," he says when I ask about when we might see a sixth map arrive in Arc Raiders. "Some of it might be a revamp or refresh of an area in an existing map. It could be a new map at a smaller scale, then a new map at a larger scale, let's say. And so [now] we're trying to figure out how they drop across the year." While Watkins says there is absolutely "merit" in just giving players new maps to explore, he feels it's important to offer more than just a fresh location - there has to be "thematically cohesive" gameplay content that comes alongside them.

I also ask about how Arc Raiders' feature set could expand in 2026. One such idea is a trading system that goes beyond the very simple transactions players have with the game's NPC vendors. At the very tail end of last year, Embark's CEO, Patrick Soderlund, told GamesBeat's Dean Takahashi that "we should do a lot more with the trading component of the game," so I ask Watkins for his view and how he could see that forming in Arc Raiders.

"It's a very tricky aspect," he admits. "You can see it in other games that have like a more traditional auction house, especially once [in-game] currency becomes involved, I think we [would] diminish one of the central aspects of our game, which is caring about the items you find and what [their] use cases are, rather than it being: 'I'm going to go into the world to maximize profit, take all that money out, and then just buy the things I need.'"

"I think any avenue we go down in terms of player trading has to keep that in mind," he adds. "It can't undercut what one of the primary loops of the game is, which is caring about exploring the world, finding the things you need to find, and then caring about getting those things out, rather than, you know, hoarding 3,000 Lance's Mixtapes to sell so you can then buy all your guns on the trading market."

When I inquire about an expansion to the current NPC trading system, where it's not player-to-player, Watkins is far more enthusiastic. "Yes, absolutely," he says when I ask if we could see more traders bartering with different kinds of resources and items in the future. "That one is far easier for us to work with, because then that gives us progression vectors and other things for the player to engage with. And obviously, since we control that aspect, we can make sure it's done with guardrails on the game's economy and things like that. So 100%, that avenue is far more appealing."

I personally believe that the world of Speranza is fascinating, and it pains me to see this underground colony reduced to just cutscenes and menu backdrops. As someone who loves the idea of shared social spaces like Destiny 2's Tower, I'd love to see Speranza brought to life in some capacity and turned into an explorable, living hub. I ask Watkins what my chances are.

"I mean, we've 100% discussed it," he reveals. "I think it was like the first question asked when we started building the front end of the game, you know, 'what would that experience be like?' It always came down to time and scope for us […] We can build a menu, and the menu will do its job. And, you know, all the extra time involved in making a hub wasn't worth it, really, or we traded other features for it.

"For me, personally, I love the vibe and aesthetic of a walkable hub, but I would want to preserve the menuing so that you can do it quickly and efficiently, rather than [having to] run to Celeste and then run to my [raider's room], and then 'Oops, I forgot this thing at Shani.' But there's also, of course, an immersion factor to that. So yeah, it's something we have discussed, and we'll continue to discuss, and I think there's definitely a good appetite on the team for it as well. It's more about when the right moment to open that door is."

In one final attempt to extract some juicy info from Watkins, I ask him to generally tee up 2026 and how the game might evolve in the coming months.

"We want to start seeing how we can escalate the experience players are having with their situation, [with] Arc, where that starts when we're laying the groundwork for it, and where that culminates in… some amount of time," he says cryptically. "[That means] giving players new circumstances to be in, and potentially new threats that they're going to have to deal with. [We want them to] start even questioning a little more whether or not they need to make a tenuous alliance in that moment, or [create] nobody-gets-out-alive-type situations. Leaning into a bit more of that is where I think we start heading."

I'll let the theory mill start turning on that one. While this upcoming roadmap will properly set out Embark's stall, this hopefully gives you a taste of what's to come and insight into how the devs are thinking about Arc Raiders' future in the wake of its wild success. I'm just going to go and painfully think about how my dream feature almost came to be… One day I'll be able to explore Speranza. One day.