Arc Raiders, developed by Embark Studios, is now one of the leading extraction shooters, but its development was far from smooth. At one point, the team had to cut nearly 100 developers and redirect them to work on The Finals, signaling just how rocky production had become.
The “reset” that saved Arc Raiders
Caio Braga, production director, shared the story during a panel at the Game Developers Conference 2026 attended by GamesRadar+. He explained that the studio recognized the need for a bigger change, calling it the “reset.”
“A lot of games would be canceled if they were in Arc Raiders’ old position, but we were confident we had something special on our hands. We just had to convince our partners at Nexon that the shooter could be salvaged.”
The reset allowed the team to refine the game’s vision, and now Arc Raiders stands out as a polished, competitive extraction shooter with a loyal player base. 
