Embark Studios wants Arc Raiders to last at least 10 years. Executive producer Aleksander Grøndal revealed the studio's long-term vision for the extraction shooter shortly after launch, positioning it as a live service game with an evolving story and expanding world.
That's an ambitious claim for any game, let alone one that just released into the crowded extraction shooter space.
The Mystery Behind Spiranza
Arc Raiders drops players into a post-apocalyptic setting with a distinct 1970s sci-fi aesthetic, all centered around Italy. Players are raiders from Spiranza, an underground city built after humanity got forced below the surface by the Arc—a brigade of killer robots that fell from the sky one day.
By the time the game starts, the Arc have controlled the surface for generations. Raiders are the few people willing to risk going topside to scavenge for valuables.
The big question driving everything: nobody knows where the Arc came from or what they want. Grøndal told PC Gamer this information has been "lost to myth" for the raiders, who are trying to piece together what actually happened.
"What has happened to this world? It's a big question, because the raiders, they don't know anymore. That's kind of lost to myth, so they're trying to piece it together," Grøndal said.
Underground Isn't Safe Either
The game's story goes beyond just fighting robots on the surface. Grøndal explained that Spiranza itself has internal problems from people trying to maintain society underground.
"Since there's such a dominant presence on the surface and pushes the population below ground, there's an ongoing conflict there, but also below ground, there's pressure from people living [in Spiranza]. It's not always easy to live as a human society below ground. So there's people with different agendas and conflicts going on in there as well," the producer said.
How the Story Gets Told
Embark plans to deliver the narrative through quests and an evolving codex. Players will learn about the world by completing objectives and filling out entries.
"There's quests that will tell you the immediate story about what's happening and that can reveal things about [story] arcs that I just mentioned, or other adjacent stories that take place," Grøndal explained.
But don't expect traditional RPG storytelling. Quests in extraction shooters work more like shopping lists. Early Arc Raiders quests include collecting wires, killing your first Arc robot, and opening locked chests. The early mission structure feels similar to MMO starter zones.
The narrative comes through brief voiceovers between objectives. Whether that's enough to create a compelling story remains to be seen, or if the interesting bits will just live in text logs.
The Codex System
The in-game codex does more than explain how to fight enemies. Grøndal described it as holding "all kinds of lore-adjacent notes that are collected," letting players review information about the game world.
"The codex is a repository of all kinds of lore-adjacent notes that are collected, and you can easily go back and read up on what is happening to the Rocketeer [for instance]. And this updates and evolves over time based on quest progression, but also other trigger points you're visiting, or, like, if you've defeated the Wasp five times, and you get to know a bit more about it," he said.
The codex updates from multiple sources: quest completion, visiting specific locations, and hitting gameplay milestones like defeating certain Arc robots repeatedly.
Community Events Coming
Arc Raiders will get community events, though details are light. Grøndal said events will vary in scale from major world-changing moments to smaller seasonal stuff.
"There will be events that the players will participate in. Some of them will be community-based, as in the whole community at large will participate in and they might go from world changing events to more novel Christmas holidays type events," he stated.
When asked about Helldivers 2's meta-narrative approach (another game about Earth fighting an endless alien war), Grøndal's response suggested Arc Raiders won't go that deep. Nothing indicated the game will have anything as elaborate as Arrowhead's galactic war simulation. But storyline events will happen alongside community activities.
The 10-Year Plan
Committing to a decade of support is a bold move for a brand new extraction shooter. Grøndal laid out what that means: "We will introduce new locations and new and conclude arcs and start new story arcs. So we see this as an evolving game."
This timeline means major story reveals about the Arc's origins might not drop until the 2030s. The codex will keep getting updates throughout, assuming the player base sticks around.
If the 10-year plan works out, Embark will have plenty of time to flesh out Spiranza's world and story.
The Live Service Gamble
Launching an extraction shooter in 2025 is risky business. But Embark seems confident, with Grøndal talking about the game's decade-long future less than 48 hours after release.
Recent live service games show how differently these gambles can pay off. Helldivers 2 nailed it with a narrative that explains why endless soldiers keep getting sent to hostile planets to fight robots and bugs. Players loved the approach.
Concord crashed hard. PlayStation canceled the hero shooter quickly after launch. The game failed for multiple reasons, but one was its focus on regular cinematics for characters nobody cared about yet.
What Happens Next
Embark's 10-year vision only works if Arc Raiders keeps players interested past launch. The mysteries built into gameplay (who made these robots, what do they want) are designed to keep people engaged long-term.
The setting has some unique angles. The post-future 1970s aesthetic stands out, and the tension between surface dangers and underground society pressures creates interesting contrast. Players experience this while doing standard extraction shooter activities like gathering materials for gear upgrades and fighting other players.
If Arc Raiders holds its audience through year one and beyond, Embark gets to unfold its planned narrative over a full decade. If player numbers drop, those story plans will likely get rushed or abandoned.
The promise of new locations, wrapped-up story arcs, and fresh narrative threads frames Arc Raiders as something that'll keep changing rather than staying static. Whether that roadmap actually happens depends entirely on how the game performs throughout 2025 and after.
