ARC Raiders, the first game from the studio founded by Electronic Arts’ former chief designer, will launch in 2022, Embark Studios announced at The Game Awards 2021. The game is a free-to-play first-person sci-fi shooter in which players fight to repel a mechanized alien invasion.
The preview trailer shown Thursday depicted human resistance fighters running out of a stronghold to meet incursion forces of increasing strength. First they blast apart drone-like scouts, and soon they’re taking on huge, four-legged spider-walkers and other threats. The trailer hints at a horde-style PvE match as the main mode of play.
ARC Raiders will launch on PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Windows PC via the Epic Games Store, Steam, and Nvidia GeForce Now. The game is published by Nexon, which bankrolled Patrick Soderlund’s startup when he left EA at the end of 2018. Soderlund was also brought on board Nexon’s board of directors.
-
Image: Embark Studios/Nexon
-
Image: Embark Studios/Nexon
-
Image: Embark Studios/Nexon
-
Image: Embark Studios/Nexon
-
Image: Embark Studios/Nexon
-
Image: Embark Studios/Nexon
-
Image: Embark Studios/Nexon
-
Image: Embark Studios/Nexon
-
Image: Embark Studios/Nexon
-
Image: Embark Studios/Nexon
-
Image: Embark Studios/Nexon
“With this reveal, we want to celebrate gameplay and give players more than a hint of how ARC Raiders looks and what it feels like to play,” Soderlund said in a statement. “Ultimately for a co-op action game like Arc Raiders, that’s what matters the most.”
Thursday night’s news release said ARC Raiders players will loot downed enemies “and scavenge the ruins of the past for tools and gadgets to outsmart the enemy.” Players will also “do the unexpected and improvise, using physics and your surroundings to your advantage.”
