Embark Studios’ PvPvE extraction shooter ARC Raiders has continuously defied the odds and risen to immense popularity, even with its PvP components continuing to be a source of contention. Over a month out from its launch, a debate about whether ARC Raiders should introduce a PvE-only mode has persisted, and while that might say something about its players, perhaps it says even more about the way the game operates beyond them. Specifically, there must be something about the game that would make it still worth visiting once all the players are removed from the equation.
In the latest and final episode of The Evolution of ARC Raiders—a docuseries about how ARC Raiders grew during its development—Embark delves into the design of its AI enemies, how they fit into the grand scheme of its world, and why the team found it so important that they behave like real machines. Considering there are many who have longed to see a world where PvP is optional in ARC Raiders, fighting the machines alone seems to be plenty fulfilling, and that says something about how Embark was able to realize its goals with the game’s titular enemies.
ARC Raiders’ Enemy AI Was Designed to Behave Like Real Machines
Physics is at the heart of ARC Raiders‘ design, but that is most evident in how its enemy AI behaves. According to Episode 3 of The Evolution of ARC Raiders posted on the official ARC Raiders YouTube channel, the team at Embark went above and beyond to ensure the machines in the game behaved realistically, so that players would almost be convinced that they were fighting actual machines. Ultimately, the developer accomplished this by establishing a team early on that would, according to narrator Danny O’Dwyer, “explore the possibility of using groundbreaking research in the field of robotics to enable the enemies to locomote independently of any preset animations.” Everything would still be limited by what only game development can accomplish, of course, but the machines would be designed to learn in a similar way to the robots developed by robotics companies like Boston Dynamics.
But because of this design philosophy that ARC Raiders‘ machines would be able to learn, not just from the environment around them but from how players interact with them, they would need to be able to adapt to a variety of situations. Unlike Soulslike games where players might fight a boss repeatedly in order to learn how it behaves, things would almost be the other way around in Embark’s extraction shooter, and the enemies would actually learn from the player instead. If the player shot off one of a machine’s legs, for example, it would need to adapt to its new handicap and, just like the player themselves, fight for its own survival.
The team at Embark went above and beyond to ensure the machines in the game behaved realistically, so that players would almost be convinced that they were fighting actual machines.
“What’s exciting is the fact that using this technology for our locomotion system is when a machine loses its limbs, it still wants to stand up,” creative director Stefan Strandberg stated during the episode. “It just opens that door to the imagination of what self-preservation is, and how that speaks back to the player. To us, when we saw that, that is an exciting prospect of a new type of experience that players haven’t had before. They’re literally playing against a machine.” This is all, again, grounded in ARC Raiders‘ use of physics to build a world that feels like it is fighting back, rather than one that merely gives up once it is wounded.
Players may not always be totally aware of the underlying systems at work in ARC Raiders, but they undoubtedly feel the difference the moment an ARC reacts in a way that feels unpredictable and yet accurately. A machine that refuses to collapse after it has lost a limb creates enough tension in the game that it almost isn’t dependent upon conflict with another player. Instead, it reinforces the idea that ARC Raiders‘ world itself is dangerous, even outside its PvP component. This is ultimately why Embark highlights that aspect of the game’s design so strongly, and it’s presumably one of the primary reasons why so many players want to experience the world as it is, without the threat of other players nearby.
- Released
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October 30, 2025
- ESRB
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Teen / Violence, Blood
