Swedish developer Embark Studios' ARC Raiders achieved a record-breaking launch, selling over 4 million copies within its first two weeks. This success marks the most successful global release in the history of its Korean parent company, Nexon. The paid PvPvE extraction shooter reached 700,000 concurrent players across all platforms and maintained the No. 1 spot on Steam’s Global Top Sellers list well after its release.

In Nexon's Q3 2025 earnings report, Nexon CEO Junghun Lee celebrated the game as an "extraordinary achievement" for a new IP and confirmed it will be a core pillar of the company’s portfolio moving forward. To sustain this momentum, Embark Studios has committed to a content roadmap with a new game area, enemies, and quests extending through 2026.

Embark's debut title, ARC Raiders, was first revealed at The Game Awards 2021 as a F2P cooperative shooter. During its development, the game underwent major pivots: In 2023, the genre shifted to a PvPvE extraction shooter, followed by a monetization change in 2024 from F2P to a $40 premium title (launch trailer).

From a turbulent development cycle to a record-breaking launch, this digest unpacks the story of ARC Raiders and what its success means for the future of Embark Studios.

The Timeline

Embark Studios was established in Stockholm in 2018, emerging directly from the heart of Sweden’s world-renowned "shooter hub." Founded by Patrick Söderlund, the former CEO of DICE and a key architect behind the Battlefield franchise, the studio began with a core team of veterans from that lineage. 

The mission was clear: to move beyond traditional "brute force" development methods and use next-generation technology — including procedural tools, machine learning, and cloud computing — to empower a smaller, agile team to efficiently create massive, high-fidelity worlds. ARC Raiders was revealed as the first project, initially envisioned as a cooperative PvE "hero shooter" where players would team up to fight massive, AI-driven robots in a stunning open world (2021 reveal trailer).

While ARC Raiders was the public face of the studio, internal development hit a critical wall. Despite the game’s visual polish, the team realized the core loop simply "wasn't fun." Lacking the unpredictability of human opponents, the PvE-only experience quickly became repetitive, fatally undermining the longevity required for a successful F2P title.

Facing this crisis, the studio made the difficult decision to pause and reevaluate ARC Raiders while prioritizing a separate internal project that was progressing faster: The Finals. Released in December 2023, this F2P shooter — defined by its chaotic, fully destructible environments — attracted over 10 million players, proving the studio's ability to compete with the industry giants its founders had left behind. 

However, while the launch proved the studio’s technical capability, subsequent retention struggles highlighted the volatility of the F2P market. This live ops reality check may have been a major factor in the decision to retool ARC Raiders into a premium title rather than chasing the F2P trend again.

With The Finals launched, the team returned to ARC Raiders, with a radical, new direction for it. The team abandoned the "safe" PvE co-op model and pivoted to a high-stakes PvPvE extraction shooter. This decision triggered an intense development "sprint," in which the team had to cram "twoyears of design work into six months.”

The overhaul was total: Maps designed for linear progression were opened up for nonlinear survival gameplay, and the economy was rebuilt from scratch. A key focus was refining the "trust" mechanic — making the PvE ARC machines so lethal that rival players might be forced into "soft cooperation" just to survive, only to betray one another later. By leveraging this system, the developers ensured the central gameplay loop remained endlessly surprising and highly repeatable.

One innovation in ARC Raiders centers on deep reinforcement learning(DRL) for physically based animation, where enemies are not animated via traditional hand-crafted loops but are instead treated as physical machines with virtual motors and joints. In a process detailed by the developers, these agents are trained in a physics simulation to "teach themselves" locomotion, resulting in emergent behaviors where enemies stumble, climb, or struggle to rebalance dynamically when damaged (e.g., losing a leg) rather than triggering a pre-canned "hurt" animation. This approach ensures combat feels unpredictable and grounded in physics, as detailed in Embark Studios' technical deep dive, “Transforming Animation with Machine Learning.”

Following the release of PUBG, the market was flooded with battle royale shooters until the community eventually consolidated around the “Big 4”: PUBG, Fortnite, Call of Duty, and Apex Legends. While they all share the same high-stakes, last-man-standing DNA, a closer look reveals that each title offers a distinct and unique gameplay experience. 

Since 2017, Escape from Tarkov has been the archetype for extraction shooters, defining the genre with its specific, punishing formula. While most top titles resemble this model closely, ARC Raiders stands out by taking Tarkov’s trademark depth and successfully making it approachable for a mainstream audience.

Most impressively, the overwhelming lethality of the ARC machines creates a unique social dynamic, often forcing players into uneasy alliances with rival squads just to survive. The title was poised to become the definitive entry point for the extraction genre, delivering the adrenaline of high-stakes gameplay without the hardcore realism and complexity usually found in its competitors.

The bet paid off. The game’s transition from a disjointed prototype to a genre-defining hit validated the studio's tumultuous journey. Now, with two commercial hits securing their reputation, Embark is executing a long-term live-service roadmap for both titles while actively developing two unannounced projects.

Competing with Giants: The Future of Embark and Nexon

Embark’s pivot from F2P to a $40 premium model for ARC Raiders was less a gamble and more a return to form. With a leadership team rooted in EA DICE’s heritage (Battlefield), the studio is naturally comfortable with the premium shooter model. 

While the F2P extraction shooter market often sees monetization dictate design — creating friction points with progression or power advantages — Embark secured revenue upfront. This allowed the studio to balance the economy based on generosity rather than monetization pressure, resulting in a level playing field that is far more welcoming to mainstream users.

One under-discussed aspect of ARC Raiders is how it competes with juggernauts like Call of Duty and Battlefield using a significantly smaller team — proving that the future of high-fidelity gaming is about smarter tool sets, not larger headcounts. Former Nexon CEO Owen Mahoney (who greenlighted the acquisition of Embark) unpacked this exact strategy at length in our recent podcast episode, “Whythe Games Industry Might Triple(DespiteIts Challenges).”

The foundation of the partnership was built on perfectly complementary strengths: Embark Studios sought to leverage Nexon's deep, two-decade expertise in growing and sustaining major live service titles, such as MapleStory and Dungeon Fighter. In turn, Nexon was eager to integrate Embark’s cutting-edge game technology and its systems-driven approach to development.

When Nexon originally acquired Embark, the move was met with skepticism and confusion. However, with the strong positioning of ARC Raiders, the acquisition has been vindicated. Embark has evolved into a true tentpole studio for the publisher, providing not just revenue, but a source of top-tier talent and proprietary technology that can be leveraged across Nexon’s wider portfolio.

Embark's efficient pipeline indicates the studio is not slowing down. Rather than maximizing revenue from a single title, it is poised to continue launching new experiences. For Nexon, Embark represents a successful foothold in the Western premium market and a clear signal that its investment in high-end technical capability is paying off.

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In Other News

💸 Funding & Acquisitions:

• Netflix to acquire Warner Bros. following the separation of Discovery Global for a total enterprise value of $82.7B.
• Fifth Door raises $20M for AI-powered game creation.
• Nintendo to acquire Splatoon 3 co-developer Bandai Namco Studios Singapore.
• Saudi Arabia's PIF will own over 93.4% of EA if the deal completes.
• Global gaming startup funding hits a decade low in 2025 even as the industry booms.

📊 Business & Products:

• Pikmin Bloom hits $100M in lifetime revenue after four years, as 2025 becomes its best year yet.
• Google Play in-app purchases fall 29% in RPGs and 50% in casino games.
• Savvy Games Group and King Saud University team up to develop future talent for Saudi Arabia's game and esports sector.
• Arc Games is now an independent publisher.
• Valorant Mobile is China's biggest mobile launch of 2025.

👾 Miscellaneous:

• Resident Evil Survival Unit surpasses 2M downloads in 10 days.
• EA claims 98% of Battlefield 6 matches were cheater-free during launch week.
• UK launches a mobile game child privacy review.
• 29% of German game firms expect 2026 to be a better year.
• India orders all new smartphones to ship with a mandatory cybersecurity app.

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Content Worth Consuming

The Big Question: Will the Game Industry Grow or Plateau? (gamesindustry.biz): “After sky-high sales through the COVID pandemic, growth in the games industry has dramatically levelled off over the past few years. But the big question is: Will that growth return? Or has the games industry now reached a state of maturity, where the market is essentially saturated? If the latter is the case, what will the future look like? In this special feature, GamesIndustry.biz has put together two essays from industry leaders that explore opposing viewpoints. One argues that we're in the midst of another cycle and growth is returning, while the other assumes that we're now entering a post-growth phase.”

Interview with Embark CEO on How Arc Raiders Is Defying the Industry Odds (The Game Business YouTube Channel): “In this week's edition of The Game Business Show, we're joined by Embark CEO Patrick Söderlund. The former EA boss is launching a new shooter IP this week called Arc Raiders, and despite huge competition from Battlefield and Call of Duty, early signs are very, very positive that it's going to enjoy an impressive launch. In this chat, Söderlund talks about how Arc Raiders has managed to cut through, what the team learned from their last game (2023's The Finals), and how they're trying to make games 100 times faster than anyone else.”

The Secret to Building a Gaming Nation: Gigi Levy-Weiss (Secret Stash): “Few people have shaped an entire national gaming ecosystem — but Gigi Levy-Weiss has. Known as the ‘Godfather of Israeli Gaming,’ Levy-Weiss helped kickstart the country’s modern game industry as a founder of Playtika, early investor in Moon Active, and now general partner at NFX. In this episode of Secret Stash, hosts Justin Kan and Archie Stonehill sit down with Gigi to talk about how he went from Air Force pilot to gaming mogul, the wild origin story of Playtika, and why he believes the next major disruption in games won’t come from content — it’ll come from distribution.”

Mastering Mobile Growth Marketing — Testing, Pilot Testing, and Cross-Industry Skills with Saikala Sultanova (Mobile Games Playbook): “Join us for another episode of the Mobile Games Playbook as we dive into the world of mobile growth marketing and user acquisition. Guiding us through these crucial aspects of mobile games development is industry expert Saikala Sultanova. Saikala, accompanied by host Jon Jordan, will break down the importance of structured processes in UA, including effective methods for testing and pilot testing to drive success. We’ll also explore the transferable skills and experiences UA professionals gain when moving from the fast-paced gaming space into nongaming environments.”

Absolum — Dotemu’s Path from Licensed Games to Original IP (The AIAS Game Maker’s Notebook): “Trent Kusters chats with Dotemu CEO Cyrille Imbert. Together they discuss Dotemu’s work in licensed IP, including how they pitch to license holders; the short-term financial and long-term relationship damage caused by releasing subpar products; how they inadvertently revived the beat 'em up genre with titles like Streets of Rage 4 and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge; and why and how they created their first original IP in Absolum.”

Is Ethical AI in Game Dev Even Possible? (Building Better Games): “In this episode, we talk with Benjamin Chevalier, chief AI officer at Mighty Bear Games, who has a uniquely informed perspective as an art director turned tech leader who has spent two decades building games for Ubisoft, Disney, LucasArts, and King. Ben Chevalier outlines his pragmatic, principled approach to embracing AI: using it to cut through market saturation, accelerate team output, and manage risk without compromising creative integrity. From the moral and legal controversies surrounding AI training data to the cultural shifts required for engineers and artists to build their own tools, this conversation reveals the mindset and strategies a leadership team needs to not just survive but thrive in the new AI-accelerated development landscape.”

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