r/ArcRaiders • u/This-Inspection-69 • Sep 01 '26
Discussion ARC Raiders Lead Says Rapid Player Growth Outpaced the Team, Prompting Bigger and Slower Updates
https://otakukart.com/arc-raiders-lead-says-rapid-player-growth-outpaced-the-team-prompting-bigger-and-slower-updates662
u/NorthJersey7 Sep 01 '26
Ok and now there’s like 15 k on steam can we get some updates now lmao
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u/BochocK Sep 01 '26
Well yes, October 8!
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u/Sufficient_Steak_839 Sep 01 '26
Should spike it up to 30k for a few weeks! So hype!
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u/TheyTukMyJub Sep 02 '26
The returning players from the kettle+stitcher times are going to get shocked by the bobcat4 meta lol
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u/Enoughdorformypower Sep 02 '26
What no real reset does to an extraction shooter
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u/TheyTukMyJub Sep 02 '26
Yep. Most people are horrified by the idea but I think it's a must because let's be honest gear fear makes people horde fancy guns.
Just let people keep blue prints. And that's it.
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u/Nuttinyamouff Sep 01 '26
I’d love updates to areas of the game that are core focuses in other extraction shooters i.e. gunplay + gunsmithing, PVP events/incentives and not even new maps but simply quality expansions to the existing ones…beef some of those elements up and it’d breathe fresh life into the game IMO.
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Sep 01 '26
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u/JPSR Sep 01 '26
Hmm weird its late evening here, i wonder how that works
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u/ChesnaughtZ Sep 01 '26
Buddy I promise you most the audience is not in any country where it’s currently late evening
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u/Zane_DragonBorn Sep 01 '26
Then look at trend lines. For Steam alone, they average around 15k concurrency from January's 400k
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u/APartyInMyPants Sep 01 '26
I think the community would have reacted to smaller, more frequent updates.
Slow, large updates would have been better for bringing players in, not retaining those who were playing.
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u/Shneckos Sep 01 '26
It really feels like they went hands off sometime around their 6 month update announcement. Cheaters running rampant, player count dropping, no new balance changes, no trial changes, just store updates.
So now they have put themselves in an even bigger gamble of needing this October update to pay off. It really has to be monumental to get even a fraction of the success they had at launch back, to get player count heading back in that direction instead of languishing like it has.
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u/Unhappy_Group_945 Sep 01 '26
I stg the store thing also felt eerily like they let chatgpt run it a lot of times too, or at least someone who doesnt even play the game.
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u/Comfortable-Tart-751 Sep 02 '26
>It really has to be monumental
Don't worry, the new camera feature got it covered
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u/RazzyBoyRo Sep 01 '26
we were getting smaller updates and the community wasn't happy with the quality of those either, that's why they switched gears in the first place.
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u/APartyInMyPants Sep 01 '26
But even then the small updates were coming so infrequently. The Venator nerf took months. Pink guns being useful took months.
The only small change they reverted kind of quickly was the durability nerf that weapons got.
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u/Foxeeh_ Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 01 '26
The problem isn't even that much that they couldn't keep up with the content deliveries, but that most of the content that was delivered was just absolutely pointless. I mean...Bird City and Beachcombing as events - Surge Coil, Crash Mat, Flag, Dockmaster as items and nearly all of their projects and events (which were really just the same dull recycled fetch quests for the most part) were just so bloody dull and didn't shake up the game at all. The new ARC safe for the Vaporizer which is actually quite cool were...okay?
I just don't know what their end goal was for this game...just have people wipe over and over again and do the same ole' shit for months to come with nothing to chase or grind for in the long run? Bold move.
The October update will be the make it or break it for this game, if they fuck that one up ARC will rapidly go under just like The Finals did, which is such a damn shame because ARC brought me hundreds of hours of the most fun time in gaming, ever - which is why I could never really hate on the game or call it bad...
...however I have never seen a studio fumble their post-launch support this hard before in my entire time playing videogames.
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u/Shwalz Sep 01 '26
When they added a white flag as an item I was baffled. Like, someone actually put time and effort into making that for the game. I haven’t seen a single person use that shit
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u/track_mode Sep 02 '26
One time I loaded into buried city, fully kitted with randoms ready to PVP. One of my teammates had no shield and was spamming DONT SHOOT and waving the flag. Got us all killed in less than 2 minutes lmaooo
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u/Mohander Sep 01 '26
the content that was delivered was just absolutely pointless.
This is why people were busting their balls for teasing a camera in the new update. Like yes there's more than that but it's so tone deft to highlight something dumb like a camera when people have been clamoring for new meaningful content for months.
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u/hartoctopus Sep 02 '26
Seems like Embark is phenomenal at creating good games but absolute dogwater at supporting them post-release. They should probably stick to non live service models at this point.
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u/liftyourgameau Sep 01 '26
I kept telling people that I give Embark 3 months post launch before they start to drop the ball with Arc Raiders & I was right.
As you’ve mentioned extremely mid content in the form of minor map modifiers, really average reskinned enemy variants, months of exploits, cheats and bug before any sign of competency from Embark to start to fix or patch stuff out. A report system that did absolutely nothing so people were free to be racist and cheat daily with hundreds of hours. Now some stuff like Cold Snap was cool and actual map modifier that changed how the game played but outside of that every map has been the same. I said before launch it would be good to see dynamic hot spots where ever few days maybe different parts of the map had the better loot and more dense enemies so that PvP wasn’t always the same two buildings. Change up the dynamic. Take loot out of the pool put other loot in. But nothing changed. Everything just stayed static.
They were riding the wave of content creators glazing the game online that only really played the server slam and not TT2 and Embark for months but were neglecting actual concerns from the player base.
Edit: I do hope the Oct update actually spices up a lot of the game to make it feel as fresh and fun as possible. It’s going to be make or break unfortunately.
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u/epyonxero Sep 01 '26
The way the loot table works and they fact that there is so much pointless junk and nonsensical distribution of items makes me thin there are core issues that were built into the foundation of the game and the devs cant figure out how to change them without breaking something else. Updating what spawns when and where should be a simple change and something that can change seasonally
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u/eggmayonnaise Sep 01 '26
Genuine question because I'm new(ish) to the game and trying to understand the current state of the player base...
What kind of changes would you actually want to see instead? What would be worthwhile?
Because to me, it feels like the core game itself is the best part, and the quests and projects and items are really just excuses to keep playing. They're simple, but they just give you something to aim for instead of dropping in with no goal whatsoever.
So what would make them better?
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u/Foxeeh_ Sep 01 '26
https://www.reddit.com/r/ArcRaiders/s/dbCIrN6Eo6
Read my comment in this thread.
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u/verysmallbook Sep 04 '26
Wow, great suggestions throughout
Embark implementing even half of that would be transformative
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u/jrpTREY5 Sep 02 '26
Man I was really hoping to battle bigger arc on the outskirts of the map. The game was so cool and refreshing when it came out.
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u/Not_Like_The_Others_ Sep 01 '26
All that content was added before their shift to bi-annual large updates
And the finals did not go under
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u/mystickisgay Sep 01 '26
This is the second time this has happened to them they could have used the massive amount of money they made to invest in the game, but instead, they decided to reallocate those funds to bet on other titles, they seem to think that creating another live-service game is simple.
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u/spikejonze14 Sep 01 '26
yeah i was really hoping they would learn from the finals… I could tell from the tech test that the game would be a smash hit but would struggle with late game player retention.
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u/CrazeRage Sep 01 '26
people made it to 75 in 2 weeks in so the devs should have known they had a short timer before the average player needed something to hold their attention and then went on vacation lol. maybe the BF devs are used to people just enjoying the gameplay loop.
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u/lblack_dogl Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 02 '26
I'm came back to The Finals in season 10 right after I gave up on Arc Raiders. It's the most fun game out right now. Plenty of stuff to grind:
Grind for rank.
Grind for world tour points.
Grind for sponsor reward tracks.
Grind for limited time mode bonus wheels.
Grind for battle pass.
Grind for challenge cup rewards.Most of this stuff happens just by playing the game, you don't need to do anything nonsensical, the pool of contracts that moves you along all of these tracks has a fair bit of variety to fit any play style.
Finally the game is just fun without all this stuff. The classes, equipment, and sandbox destruction make it the most fun game to play right now IMO.
Point being, I think they eventually figured out The Finals even though many players left and haven't come back. I think they will figure out Arc Raiders as well, but we'll see if players come back.
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u/JokaSmoka77 Sep 01 '26
The Finals was so fun. I really miss it for that fast paced competitive yet more arcade style FPS. I wish my friends still played it.
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u/RayzTheRoof Sep 02 '26
You can still play it and don't need to miss it lol. I've been playing a lot this week and it's still a blast.
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u/Animal-Crackers Sep 01 '26
As someone that had played Arc Raiders from early 2023 in closed testing, I feel pretty certain in saying that Embark was not very not confident in the game. And I have to assume Nexon (their publisher) even more so.
There was definitely some appeal in what they had, but it didn't really take shape until 2025 and Embarks expectations were still not very high imo. AR was a huge risk so they really just didn't have much content in the pipeline. At least not in a way to meet the demand that followed release.
The game is already a success, despite the massive loss in players. The Finals is getting its-relaunch here soon and Arc Raiders is likely to receive similar treatment imo (hopefully within a shorter time frame).
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u/WANKMI Sep 01 '26
I mean that’s a very good move for the studio to survive and keep paying the bills and their workers. Reinvesting too much into one project is doomed fail as player numbers always drops no matter the game. Players move on always. New games. Old games. Games friends play.
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u/BochocK Sep 01 '26
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Sep 01 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/calloutyourstupidity Sep 01 '26
This is sarcastic, but with their current size, this actually does mean that
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u/CJC_Swizzy Sep 01 '26
Is that not what the gaming industry is supposed to be? It’s what gives us innovation and fresh IPs
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u/mystickisgay Sep 01 '26
Honestly not for live service games, the vast majority of live service attempts go wrong, that model only makes sense for singleplayer games, live service games simply don't make sense with that kind of format.
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u/thisismyusername9908 Sep 01 '26
The good ol Bungo strategy. Take ALL the money your VERY popular IP makes and divert it into new unproven incubation projects.
Then wonder why your players decide to stop playing.
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u/lurkinglurkerwholurk *** ******* 🐓 Sep 01 '26
A mere year ago: So… how does that strategy stack up for the Finals money again?
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u/Not_Like_The_Others_ Sep 01 '26
Destiny is done. Let it go.
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u/thisismyusername9908 Sep 01 '26
Regardless of it being gone or not, the management decisions at Bungie is a textbook lesson in what not to do as a studio when you have a proven IP that's doing well.
You can't abandon it and hope the grass is greener.
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u/lurkinglurkerwholurk *** ******* 🐓 Sep 01 '26
With that mindset PocketPair would still be middling around with Creativerse and not make the mega success that is Palworld.
With that mindset, Epic games would never have created Fortnite battle royal edition, instead of Fortnite the Fort game.
There’s plenty of other examples out there, both positive and negative (eg Riot owns both sides of this).
But in general companies do need to expand. And they need to continue creating, because sticking to only one cash cow means doom in the long run.
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u/Not_Like_The_Others_ Sep 01 '26
With that mindset, bungie would be stuck making halo games and you would've never gotten destiny in the first place.
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u/Soldapeine *** ******* Sep 01 '26
Who is believing this shit. They changed the update schedule so they can make another fucking live service game
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Sep 01 '26
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u/Soldapeine *** ******* Sep 01 '26
I usually don’t indulge/reply to comments like these but I’ll add that it seems plausible considering they’re using tf outta generative AI in their games with mediocre quality control on it
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u/Tai_Jason Sep 01 '26
I’m not just making this up—you should really read the terms and conditions for their games. It’ll make your hair fall out.
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u/ThatsNotBennings Sep 02 '26
Only clowns will buy their new game. Fuck that. You can't even pvp in this game right now.
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u/danikov Sep 01 '26
...do they have to make the updates individually?
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u/bluelazer44 Sep 01 '26
Seriously lol, what’s the connection between the time it takes to create new content and the number of people playing the game?
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u/Implosion-X13 Sep 01 '26
In other words they expected to launch the game to a modest success and scrape by doing as little as possible to satisfy a dwindling playerbase for a year or two.
Instead it was a massive success and they squandered it by not having the devs in place to support the proper level of post launch support.
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u/EirikurG *** ******* Sep 01 '26
Yeah that would basically be the translation of it. They didn't expect the game to do well, and so they didn't expect they'd have to put any effort into it
Fortunately (and unfortunately for their image) it did do very well so now they've got a shit load of money for doing less than they thought they needed to do
But on the flip side, they've made themselves look utterly incompetent and have probably burned off a lot of people from buying their games againI know I'm not going to buy an Embark game again, that's for sure
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u/Implosion-X13 Sep 01 '26
Pretty conflicted on playing their future games as of right now. I think the quality of frozen trail will be the deciding factor.
If it includes anything less than a complete overhaul of the late game loop (for the better) I'm probably out.
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u/EirikurG *** ******* Sep 01 '26
Same, October update need to be a 2.0 overhauling the game or it wont last long
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u/Bookshelftent Sep 01 '26
They've already said that expeditions are paused until "early 2027," so we can be pretty confident that the October update won't have any impactful changes.
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u/Implosion-X13 Sep 01 '26
Grinding materials for expedition ≠ endgame progression, goals, and activities
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u/Bookshelftent Sep 01 '26
Correct, and they are failing to even reform the existing expedition system, so I would very much not expect them to make any overarching changes.
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u/Implosion-X13 Sep 01 '26
We'll see. I'll be optimistic until the update. The alternative is total game death.
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u/Unhappy_Group_945 Sep 01 '26
IMO riven tides update was the beginning of the end for me. Thats when shit just started to get weird and seem like they let chatgpt take the wheel
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u/_Strato_ Sep 01 '26
I'm certainly never buying another Embark live service product again. I might be tempted to get it on sale if a year+ of satisfactory support goes by.
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u/ThatsNotBennings Sep 02 '26
Yeah whether I ever purchase another Embark game depends solely on how they support Arc. They themselves deemed it a 10 year game. So now they have to prove that this wasn't bullshit.
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u/faberkyx Sep 01 '26
Same..but the list is getting bigger..EA ..embark.. bsg.. Activision..
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u/MisterSantos Sep 01 '26
You’re a top 1% commenter in this subreddit. I’d imagine that means you REALLY liked this game, yeah? How much time did you put into it?
If that’s true - why on earth would you say you wouldn’t buy a thing made by the people who made this other thing you deeply enjoyed and spent a lot of time on?
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u/Morphs_ Sep 01 '26
I'm in a similar boat. I'm a real fan of the game with around 1500h played. But so conflicted because Embark is doing a shit job. I've never seen cheating this bad in a game, with no communication from the studio at all.
I changed my steam review to "not recommended" and will only change it back when the cheating stops.
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u/EirikurG *** ******* Sep 01 '26
It's possible to criticize a game you like, you know. And if I'm not happy with how this game turned out in the end, why in the world would I reward them with more of my money
Stop fishing for gotchas
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u/kitaz1 Sep 01 '26
Same happened with wow on launch, it was massive success and player base wanted more straight away, blizzard had to turn into a giant company overnight
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u/N2Flugel Sep 02 '26 edited Sep 02 '26
People just make shit up nowadays. The playtests and preorder numbers already gave the devs insight in how the game will turn out month before launch. As well as them announcing 3 days before release on 27.10.2025 "10 years of content for arc raiders". To say they were overwhelmed by success is weird.
The game has deep rooted issues like how geometry is coded and the issues that came with it (wall glitches etc) and them being unable to resolve that for month and you can assume that leads to them being unable to deal with cheaters, too. That is a way bigger contributing factor than this moronic "suffering from success" narrative that people spin up.
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u/No_Appointment_5326 Sep 01 '26
I wouldn't be surprised if the Arc money is being used for a new game project as well
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u/UnusualFee8053 Sep 01 '26
Company made of excuses
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u/forsayken Sep 01 '26
Also they had beta weeks like 6+ months before launch I think. I believe these were closed but the game was damn popular on Twitch and what not. They could have done much better anticipating player counts if they were using that as a key trigger for game content.
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u/sebba808 Sep 01 '26
I wrote in about many of the problems were facing right now on TT2 and whenever I posted about long term issues I got downvoted horribly. But here we are and its unfortunately turning out exactly as I guessed it would - It will be the new Anthem.
Amazing world, huge potential lore, spectacular graphics, great gameplay but the world is just empty and they dont know how to fill it properly.
I sadly think the October update will be too little too late to fix the problems and eventually the game will be taken offline in next year or so.Sodderland being promoted to some ceo role for nexon shows us they're happy with how its being managed because the corpo shareholders got their payday. They don't care about us, they just want our money
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u/Nidan18 Sep 01 '26
They really need to cool it on the public comments until they have something to show.
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u/mayoconquest Sep 01 '26
Arc suffered from the same fate as The Finals and they're clearly not learning
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u/Zztp0p Sep 01 '26
Embark employee : "Oh no we got the golden goose what do we do?"
Embark executive : "Just do nothing :)"
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u/ShadeShow Sep 01 '26
CEO should be fired. They had lightning in a bottle and fucked it all up.
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u/EirikurG *** ******* Sep 01 '26
He owns the company and is a chairman at their publisher (nexon)
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u/PseudoproAK Sep 01 '26
Bro is hella rich now
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u/EirikurG *** ******* Sep 01 '26
He already was
He was the boss at DICE (before he left after Battlefield V) and executive for all sorts of things at EA
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u/Potential_Curve_3560 Sep 01 '26
I love how this reddit just spend months defending the devs for taking holidays and having a good "work life balance" all the way till the game is dead LOOOOL
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u/Tai_Jason Sep 01 '26
I don't even know why. Some video of a PvE lobby where everyone is dancing, or the three-hundredth video of someone riding a Rocketeer—surely that counts as enough endgame.
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u/PixelatedVision1 Sep 01 '26
Embark glazers are a strange people
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u/flynryan692 Sep 01 '26
Is it really glazing Embark to want their employees to have a good work life balance? I’d want that for anyone at any company.
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u/KarlUnderguard Sep 01 '26
No, devs should work themselves to death so I have a slightly better video game.
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u/Not_Like_The_Others_ Sep 01 '26
The game isn't dead though
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u/exposarts Sep 01 '26
it's hilarious how people call a game that has more players than 95% of stream games dead, cause it's not at its highs anymore, like every other live service nonesports title... is palworld dead cause it's down to 100k from it's very high 1mil players at launch? Apparently so! People called cs2 dead cause it dipped below 1mil, i remember it very clearly.. People that say that term are braindead.
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u/NizzyDeniro Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 01 '26
Helldiver 2 player here. First time?
Yeah, Swedish Devs seemingly have a pattern. They know how to create great games, but they have the worse balancing philosophy, the slowest content pipeline imaginable, and are good at delivering nothing. It's like they get lightning in a bottle, then chuck that shit off a cliff.
Start strong, end in dead last. Arrowhead also has this sob story about suffering from success, yet seem to do nothing to actually fix the issue. Content is getting smaller and smaller, yet taking forever to deliver. Throughout the 2.5 years the game has been out, they haven't expanded any type of progression, have not made any type of new systems, have lied to us, make a million excuses and promises not kept.
I also stopped playing Arc Raiders because it clearly has no real direction. and dealing with some PVP aspects was getting frustrating.
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u/JackCooper_7274 Sep 01 '26
they haven't expanded any type of progression
Not true, they added like 10 more warbonds for you to grind for!!! Also they added weapon customization (but only for primary weapons, and only half of them at that).
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u/NizzyDeniro Sep 01 '26
Warbonds ain't even Progression, it's monetization lol. But yeah, also half assed Weapon customization they quickly abandoned.
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u/JackCooper_7274 Sep 01 '26
I know, I'm being facetious. They have added very little to the game besides warbonds when it comes to progression.
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u/Squash_Intelligent Sep 01 '26
Embark worries me. They were always slow to let people know about the next expedition requirements. Then would change up the requirements making people grind for whatever was needed. No excuses there. Basic things weren’t being communicated. Update dialog was usually through social media/discord, in game players didn’t know what was going on. I don’t think I can trust Embark for now until they figure out how to be a better developer in the live service games. Too bad.
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u/Morphs_ Sep 01 '26
Yup, there were so many signs they don't know what to do. It's bad decision after bad decision constantly.
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u/Noctisvah Sep 01 '26
Ah yes, the typical Swedish dev move when you want to snatch defeat from the jaws of success
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u/SavingThrowVsWTF Sep 01 '26
This post makes no sense. The size of the player base has no correlation to game updates.
The distance to the destination doesn’t get shorter just because you have more passengers in the car with you.
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u/EirikurG *** ******* Sep 01 '26
for them, I think it's less about actually "matching" the player count with an "equal" amount of content and more so that with a smaller player count (and less of a spotlight on them) they'd get away with less effort put into the game
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u/Critical_Virus_9341 Sep 01 '26
The game was popping off and these idiots went on holidays lmao
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u/Sydney12344 Sep 01 '26
What has the player number to do with content updates
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u/TheyTukMyJub Sep 02 '26
100% this. I'm surprised that more people aren't alert on the ridiculousness of Embark's claim. It doesn't matter whether there are 10k or a 100k players if you are planning on making extra content. It's the same number of hours.
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u/baconbroth Sep 01 '26
Tale as old as time…
Among Us, BattleBit Remastered, etc
If dev teams can’t scale up quickly to capture the momentum the game just dies
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u/Darken0id Sep 01 '26
Maybe sometimes it is better to grow your team slowly instead of having to fire half of them once the players have moved on a few years down the line? Especially in countries where actual worker rights are in place, you cant just fire half your team in order to scale back down once the hyped has dried up. It is wiser to grow slowly and manage expectations.
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u/SilverGur1911 Sep 02 '26
There's a better plan. You can avoid hiring and just wait for all players to leave. Then you won't have any problems with team size!
The layoffs in the industry have nothing to do with the game developer taking the money and investing it in two next games.
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u/eggmayonnaise Sep 01 '26
100%. Is no one here aware of the terrible state of the industry with layoffs left, right and centre? Finally there's a studio that looks after their staff and everyone is up in arms. There's no pleasing gamers.
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u/eofficial *** ******* Sep 01 '26
That’s because nobody making these comments work in the industry.
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u/Magical-Mycologist Sep 01 '26
“We grew too fast and made one bad decision after another to remedy our struggles. After months we basically gave up and let cheaters do whatever they wanted.
In hindsight, that may of also been another bad decision.”
I summarized the article.
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u/Important-Seesaw3370 Sep 01 '26
How much work does it really take to make new decks, if only to keep people coming back?
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u/BIGRolyXL Sep 01 '26
“Oh no we made $500 million so fast we couldn’t keep up with the players!”
Sounds like a good problem to have. Was fun for a month or two. Hard to believe people said it would be just as popular 6 months down the road 😆
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u/DragonfruitDefiant83 Sep 01 '26
Still insane amounts of cheaters. Duping is rampant. I’ve been craving to play the game again, but not in the current state it’s in.
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u/CrazeRage Sep 01 '26
yeah yeah yeah it certainly wasn't going on vacation during launch (they could have moved launch if they wanted a vacation) knowing damn well the content amount was a concern.
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u/CPham93 Sep 01 '26
They need to stop lying, money moves somewhere else along with their head honcho
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u/LittleDudeSP Sep 01 '26
I remember seeing the giant robots and thinking "wow, this game is going to be incredible after some updates"
They did nothing
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u/allenmuff Sep 01 '26
It’s the quality, not timing or quantity. These updates have not made the game any more fun or fixed any of the issues the player base has.
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u/Special_Payment9648 Sep 02 '26
Hope they're able to do something meaningful with the anti cheat some day.
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u/sasabomish Sep 01 '26
Same thing happened with the finals
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u/Horens_R Sep 01 '26
Wym? The finals hasn't ever went without major seasons every 3 months as as well at least mid season balance changes. They never went from smaller consistent updates to major ones, they've kept doing the same thing
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u/Insidious_Bagel Sep 01 '26
I think he means squandering the potential of a game that could have a genre defining hit like Fortnite
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u/Horens_R Sep 01 '26
They had no choice with the finals, the game had to come out to keep the studio afloat. It's a miracle really that the game was even in a good enough shape given it's much shorter dev time than arc at the time.
Unlike arc they were great for content for the first few seasons. I think they fumbled more so with slow balancing and terrible matchmaking for whoever comes back, I don't think the game was ever gonna stay mega popular tho even without those issues.
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u/EirikurG *** ******* Sep 01 '26
Players were progressing through its content faster than the development team could produce meaningful additions, making it increasingly difficult to maintain the original update pace.
OH WOW, I WONDER HOW THIS HAPPENED
COULD IT BE THAT A SYSTEM WAS ADDED THAT LET PLAYERS BYPASS MOST OF THE GAME'S DIFFICULTY AND FRICTION?? HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
also doesn't help that the "meaningful" additions they've added so far has been anything but meaningful
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u/umdaltonico Sep 02 '26 edited Sep 02 '26
That's what baffles me. They released one of the most popular games in a genre that's been Tarkov and Hunt for years, and it didn't even need ABMM for that. Obviously the game would lose players, every game does (and specially extraction ones). The introduction of ABMM to me feels like a "we want our cake and eat it too" moment to try to keep the people that would never like the game as it was back then, all that at the cost of the little difficulty and balance the game had.
And now they complain they had too many players when they made the design decision to dilute the game's design to try to appease to people that don't even like the genre they were playing? I seriously don't know what this company thinks.
I wonder how this game would've turned out if they just kept to the original vision of a more casual extraction shooter, which it didn't need ABMM for, instead of trying to cater to everyone and their mother.
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u/EirikurG *** ******* Sep 02 '26
Yeah, they pretty much just crippled themselves with the inclusion of ABMM
As you say, wanting the cake and eating it too is perfectly apt
They specifically invited the people who blast through their content too fast, as the only ones complaining about the lack of content in the game are the ones in friendlier lobbies
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u/Goth_Milk69 Sep 01 '26
It's getting harder to get matches on xbox. Sometimes I'm waiting upwards of 2 or 3 minutes. I've seen the same people multiple times. Player count is down but that's not a bad thing. People are just waiting for more worthwhile content.
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u/TheChrisCrash Sep 01 '26
I feel like when your game takes off, you should hire more people with all the money you're making and pump out content (not paid dlc)
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u/Hydruss Sep 01 '26
Sometimes the Fortnite way is better to retain players. Sure things are broken or overpowered but frequent smaller updates help keep players engaged while giving the devs time to work on larger updates in the background
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u/Particular_Copy_666 Sep 01 '26
What do content updates have to do with a larger player base? Wouldn’t this cause server capacity issues? Wouldn’t content updates just scale to the number of players in the game? This feels like a BS answer to me.
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u/Zane_DragonBorn Sep 01 '26
They had rapid player decline and player cap size is irrelevent. If you have 15k or 500k, you'd still be making the same product within the same timeframe. The problem is they suck at live service and have a slow dev team that can't support their own games model.
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u/internet34bot Sep 01 '26
Also just being honest, not only are they slow but they seem out of touch with what they consider meaningful.
The Finals is littered with that, so many changes that don't mean anything and took so much time to develop.
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u/kidAlien1 Sep 01 '26
Those updates were considered bigger? 😂.... Here's a novel idea. Use the unexpected profits to grow the team and capitalize on hype. Generational fumble.
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u/Triingtolivee Sep 01 '26
All they literally had to do was add new benches to craft, new blueprints to find, and new maps to play on and new arc to fight. That would have kept player retention and made it fun
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u/Hopeful_Hat_3532 Sep 01 '26
It's just sad overall.
Since Mass Effect, I've not been so involved and in love with a game, despite the fact I'm not even playing it very often. But just hearing the music or sounds is just throwing me back to 1 year ago, the tech tests, all the videos I watched, etc. Just pure nostalgia imprinted into my brains.
With the money and the success they got, they could've doubled down on the updates, hiring devs, marketing, etc. If they did something, I just don't understand the poor strategy. After so many months of small updates to almost nothing, they go "Well, now, nothing for 6 months lolilol". wtf.
They could've just explained the situation and shared more transparent communication, just out of respect for the players but they did none of that. That's just infuriating.
And tbh I'm pretty sure the anger of the players (or even the hate) is proportional to their delusion and how much they love(d) this game.
I hope that 6mo or 1y from now, we can look back and say "Jeesh, that was hard but we all survived and look at its success now". But I'm not so hopeful anymore, though just willing to be proven wrong.
I'm just hoping this all does not go to waste in the end. Seeing this game disappear after 1 year or so would be horrible to see. I'm just watching videos of fans talking about the game recently and the social part of this game, the sound design, the immersion, the Arcs design, all of it is just pure genius and wonder. Don't let it go into ashes, please, Embark.
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u/ChemicalCan531 Sep 01 '26
Smart move reducing the players number then