“Ultimately, we asked ‘why are we doing this?’”: the creators of Arc Raiders wildly underestimated how hard it is to make a live service game
Embark Studios’ extraction shooter Arc Raiders has become a cautionary tale about underestimating the demands of live service game development. Executive producer Aleksander Grøndal revealed in a recent interview at Gamescom that the studio significantly miscalculated the resources and effort required to maintain the game post-launch.
Launched approximately one year ago, Arc Raiders was conceived with ambitions for monthly post-release updates to sustain player engagement. However, these plans quickly proved unsustainable. The development team found itself in a cycle of consistently exceeding capacity, leading to widespread burnout and staff dissatisfaction.
Grondal’s candid reflection on the experience highlights a common challenge in the live service sector: the gap between initial planning and operational reality. Maintaining a live service title requires continuous content creation, bug fixes, balance adjustments, and server management—demands that are often underestimated during the planning phase, particularly by studios without prior live service experience.
The situation reflects broader industry struggles with live service games, where publishers and developers frequently attempt ambitious update schedules that strain development resources. Grøndal’s willingness to discuss the team’s struggles and capacity issues suggests Embark is reassessing its approach to sustaining Arc Raiders.