During Arc Raiders’ development, Embark Studios explored the idea of large-scale boss encounters built around pattern recognition—the kind of combat choreography seen in Dark Souls or Monster Hunter—but ultimately found the game’s massive robotic enemies too unpredictable for that scripted approach.
Arc Raiders’ technical designer, Nora Silow, outlines this in a making-of docuseries (embedded below). She explains that many design approaches—particularly those governing enemy behaviour—are difficult to implement when the systems produce emergent, variable interactions rather than consistent, repeatable animations.
Silow adds that franchises like Dark Souls and Monster Hunter rely on that predictable choreography, and Embark initially wanted Arc Raiders to deliver similarly gratifying boss encounters rooted in pattern recognition.
However, the studio discovered the Arcs introduce too many uncontrollable variables for tightly scripted boss fights. Pattern-based encounters depend on consistent animations leading to consistent outcomes — a premise that falls apart if a scarab-like Arc is perched on an unexpected slope or another player engages from an unplanned angle.
Silow summed it up bluntly: “You won’t get the pattern you expected.”
Players abused the Hidden Bunker so extensively that Embark disabled it entirely.
Source: gamesradar.com
