One part of Embark Studios’ recent announcement about the next major Arc Raiders update caught my attention right away: Frozen Trail, the game’s biggest update yet, will “explore the origin of Arc.” If there’s one thing the sci-fi extraction shooter hasn’t touched on much, it’s the world’s lore and backstory. The official announcement continued: “What are Arc and where do they come from? Frozen Trail gives Raiders the opportunity to begin uncovering that mystery.”
Fans have been theorizing about this for a while already, and there are loads of clues if you know where to look. Most of it stems from one place: Embark’s other game, The Finals. Arc Raiders was in development before The Finals existed, but the latter — a futuristic multiplayer arena FPS where matches are essentially a metaverse-themed game show — was released almost two years before Arc Raiders.
Embark has never outwardly confirmed that the two games exist in the same universe, but it’s a fairly safe bet because the two have plenty of things in common. The most obvious connection is that a number of the sponsors in The Finals (fictional companies that players can sign up with to earn cosmetic rewards) are mentioned throughout Arc Raiders.
Alfa Acta, for example, is the name of a sponsor in both seasons 6 and 10 of The Finals, and the company logo shows up on the back of a helmet in Arc Raiders. Coincidence? I think not. Another example is this Arc Raiders pre-release image, showing off the “rollerbot,” which is now known as a Fireball in the live game. Posted to Reddit by user Crosbymw, the logo behind the foe in the image is the Dissun sponsor logo from The Finals, flipped upside down.
The most compelling proof comes from a vandalized advertising board in an early Arc Raiders trailer. Initially spotted by Reddit user UomoRaga, an ad for Jiangsu Romagna — another sponsor in The Finals — has the word “bugiardi!” plastered over it. Arc Raiders‘ environment is reminding of a futuristic, post-apocalyptic Italy, so the language checks out, and that word translates to “liars.” (Romagna is also the name of an Italian region.)
In The Finals, a hacker group known as CNS often enacts cyberattacks against the game show, including messages such as “seek the truth beyond the walls” and “one night, three dawns. See the signs.” These often come from an anonymous figure, known only as “4RCU5,” which is quite clearly meant to be pronounced as “Arcus.” Could Arcus be a rebellious faction of Arc raiders down on Earth, doing everything they can to sabotage and fight back against those who abandoned them?
It’s widely believed that The Finals takes place in the year 2100, while Arc Raiders is set in 2180. We know that the apocalypse in the latter was caused by something known as “the collapse,” a vast array of natural disasters, including floods, wildfires, and earthquakes. What followed is known as “the exodus,” when a select few survivors managed to escape the planet and head for outer space.
Reading between the lines, it’s implied that the survivors were actually the wealthy elite, and they’re being branded as liars because they promised salvation to many, but evidently left without making good on that promise. The exodus was also clearly not a last-minute panic; civilization knew it was coming.
That’s all well and good, but it doesn’t answer the question of what the Arc robots actually are, and more importantly, why they’re hellbent on killing everyone left on Earth. One thing is for sure, though: we know they’re built by humans. Each Arc has a serial number on its metal shell, and some of the larger enemies — like the Queen and Bastion — have footholds for engineers to climb up and access their inner workings.
We’re therefore led to believe that the Arc robots are being sent down to Earth by the wealthy elite who escaped during the exodus, or perhaps their descendants. For one reason or another, they want to eliminate the remaining population. Machines such as the Harvester suggest that they’re also trying to mine resources that they cannot acquire wherever they currently reside.
Finally, as spotted by Reddit user tomzorzhu, the two games use the same filing cabinet asset. Is this proof that the two share a universe? Absolutely not, because it could well be — and is most likely a case of — Embark reusing assets. But if it turns out the two games are in the same world… then it makes perfect sense.
