Our full chat with Embark: How Arc Raiders was saved mid-development, the balancing process, and the possibility of vehicles

Earlier this month at the 2026 Game Developers Conference, Embark production director Caio Braga gave a talk titled “When your AAA game isn’t fun: the Arc Raiders story of starting over with intent.”

PC Gamer spoke with Braga after the talk to answer some questions on our mind: Will Arc Raiders ever have vehicles? What does Embark make of high-profile failures in live service games? You can (and should) watch the full interview above.

One topic that was top of mind for Braga was the community’s influence on updates and how behavior somewhat differed from playtests pre-release. Embark has its fair share of cooperative sessions among the studio, but Braga says the studio tends toward bloodthirsty PvP, including one particularly ruthless coworker.

“His nickname is the Hatch Camper. He loves PvP in the game. He’s like Spider-Man: He’s here, then he jumps out and ziplines behind you again. He kills whole squads all the time. He’s very good at the game,” Braga said.

“So we have both: We have people trying to have fun encounters, and some people just trying to be very efficient. That’s good because we have a mix—that’s what we want from the players as well.”

Some other topics Braga touched on: How the Arc we know now were once hated by early players, the unexpected passion for PvE, and where Embark stands on adding vehicles to Arc raiders (the prototypes exist!).

About