Embark Studios has been busy making ARC Raiders the gift that keeps on giving, with its Flashpoint update providing a new level of challenge, underlining the studio’s determination to keep its players from “feeling safe” even in friendly lobbies. But as always, the team is thinking bigger.
Speaking to GamesRadar+ at GDC, Martin Singh-Blom, who leads Embark’s machine learning research, has outlined how the studio remains determined to give its players as many options as it can despite pushing unpredictability and a sense of danger as they venture out on a run. He even pointed to an iconic scene from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back as a source of inspiration.
“Those of us who really work with the physics and make things happen with physics, of course, want more physics in the game at every turn. We want ropes to pull at legs and wires to trip them, like the Hoth invasion scene in Star Wars where they have the speeders and wrap up the legs. We could do that if we just had better rope physics, right?”
It would certainly be thrilling to bring an ARC down with nothing but cables. However, there are limitations to what the studio can do, especially when considering the capabilities of current-gen gaming platforms. There are also concerns about resource-intensive additions arising from such pitches.
“They (designers) tend to be much more hooked into what the game actually needs, and we tend to be much more hooked into what we want to do with this new tech. Hopefully, we get a good synthesis where we push the boundaries of what we can do, and still do things that make sense for the game.”
It’s a position that’s quite aligned with Nexon’s intended use of AI for the game, while the studio turns its attention to honing its crafting systems for a more polished experience. Knowing that the brains behind a very successful extraction shooter are looking to push their boundaries, and those of modern gaming with them, is exciting, but we’ll have to wait and see how that manifests.
