Embark Studios CEO Patrick Söderlund discusses making ARC Raiders a successful game that can compete in the AAA space with a quarter of the normal AAA budget.
ARC Raiders is an exceptionally successful game, boasting one of the highest player counts on Steam. With a suggested budget of $75 million, the game has long since recouped its costs. In a recent statement, the CEO of Embark explained that the studio’s size isn’t as essential as the quality of its product.
Furthermore, he discusses realizing they could create a high-profile game for only 25% of the budget typically required for a top-tier title.
Embark Studios CEO Patrick Söderlund Discusses His A-ha Moment During the Making of ARC Raiders
In an interview with GamesIndustry.Biz, Söderlund explains that during the production of this game, they realized that with the advancements in technology and a conscious restructuring of the team, they could compete in the AAA space for much less.
“We realised that tasks like texturing, lighting, and placement of objects were difficult, so we tried to see how much of this boring work could be removed,” Söderlund explains. “A lot of it is reconfiguring what I believe are old ways of working – old toolsets, old pipelines, old engines, and saying there must be a better way of doing this.”
He would go on to discuss how Embark uses AI in its games and how it has decreased the AI usage in ARC Raiders over time. Read his full comments here.
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