Embark Studios is ditching its monthly content plans, with the next major update now slated to arrive in October.
The extraction shooter that exploded in popularity last year, Arc Raiders, has been receiving constant content updates since its launch. This almost monthly update schedule that developer Embark Studios is keeping has delivered new maps, fresh enemies to fight, events, and gameplay features during this time. However, the studio has now announced that this live service schedule is changing.
Ditching the monthly schedule, Embark is now switching to a bi-annual plan for larger-scale and more impactful updates. This means major updates that change the way players experience the game will now arrive every six months or so.
This means that the next update is now landing in October, and it is already being called the biggest content drop for the game yet. Dubbed Frozen Trail, this is slated to add a brand-new region for players to explore, unique ARC enemies, an improved skill tree, and more:
- A Sprawling New Frontier – Explore a new landscape in the Rust Belt with layered design and new mysteries to uncover in the largest map in the game.
- Our Most Ambitious ARC Operation So Far – including new ARC enemies with fresh designs, and unique behaviors that will challenge Raiders in new ways.
- New Systems of Progression – Many players have maxed out their Raider Den and hit the Skill Point ceiling. Frozen Trail will introduce new goals and more ways to shape your Raider’s progression.
- Exploring the origin of ARC – What are ARC and where do they come from? Frozen Trail gives Raiders the opportunity to begin uncovering that mystery.
- Improved Skill Tree
- Alongside new weapons, items, instruments, cosmetics and more
The studio added that while it planned to bring in monthly updates from launch to keep players engaged, it realized that it needed more time to deliver more significant changes. The fast pace was also deemed to be unsustainable.
“We think about Arc Raiders as an experience that should continue expanding over time, and right now we’re still early in that journey,” the studio added in a blog post today. “The bi-annual cadence gives us the opportunity to develop to build future updates with more intention, ensuring that gameplay, progression, narrative, and the world itself all move forward together.”
The studio is spinning up a separate live service development team to keep the game updated with smaller changes, events, bug fixes, and store refreshes. These will continue to arrive as the main team focuses on Frozen Trail for its October launch across PC and consoles.
