For those not in the know, Embark Studios just released a brand-new ARC Raiders update, dubbed Riven Tides. It brings about the end of an ambitious four-month roadmap, and from here, we haven’t got any idea what’s coming next.
However, despite a huge build-up, Riven Tides feels underwhelming and, dare I say it, disappointing. It’s supposed to be the grand finale of the Escalation roadmap, bringing about the first new map in five months, and introducing a large ARC enemy, but the ultimate delivery of the thing totally misses the mark.
Riven Tides has come hand-in-hand with some pretty controversial changes, too.
What’s Wrong with Riven Tides?
In January, players walked into Headwinds, the first of four major ARC Raiders updates that kick-started the Escalation roadmap. In February, we got Shrouded Sky, and in March, Flashpoint. The arrival of Riven Tides was supposed to herald the most substantial ARC Raiders update since launch, but that’s not necessarily the case.
Riven Tides, the first new map since Stella Montis was released in November, is nice enough, but it’s not five-months-of-waiting levels of nice. It’s a beachfront location, populated by just a small scattering of points of interest, including a dockyard and a hotel, but it doesn’t feel like anything too new or exciting.
Despite being on the oceanfront, Riven Tides has almost no connection to anything water-based.
In early concept art, Riven Tides was advertised as something hulking, and we had visions of some surging ARC enemy coming up out of the ocean to take on all comers. And that’s where the second disappointing aspect of Riven Tides comes in: the new ARC threat.
The roadmap was supposed to contain a New Large ARC with this update, but we’ve got something that floats gracefully down to the ground, shoots some lightning at you, then floats away again a few times. It requires some heavy hitting to take it down, but it’s not at all striking, impressive, or interesting.
It’s certainly not a patch on the original ARC enemies. We’re all waiting for something as unique and cinematic as the Leaper or the Matriarch to surface again.
It doesn’t end there, though.
The original roadmap explained that we’d get a New Map Condition with Riven Tides, and we have, but it’s a minor one. On the roadmap graphic published by Embark Studios months ago, minor map conditions were named specifically, with major ones simply being dubbed ‘New Map Condition’.
Beachcombing, the Riven Tides map condition, feels like a downgrade, surfacing as a treasure-hunting minigame of sorts. In terms of things not being substantial, it was also not encouraging to see all the new quests associated with Riven Tides being extremely simple, hand-held, and mundane tasks, rather than anything at all meaty.
So, that’s the underwhelming map that doesn’t blow your hair back, the large ARC that has turned out to be a non-descript floating lightning machine, and a new map condition that doesn’t inspire much entertainment value.
But It Gets Worse
The Riven Tides patch notes dropped today, revealing all the changes, improvements, buffs, and nerfs coming with this major update. For instance, it revealed positive points, such as weapons now being repaired somewhat when upgrading them (which never made sense).
However, it also unveiled some awful changes. To address weapon durability further, Embark Studios has made it so that ‘cheaper’ weapons break much faster than high-tier weapons. That’s a problem for low-economy players who rely on more affordable loadouts, which is the bulk of the community.
The average durability of spawned weapons has been slashed, which means you could pick up weapons in-raid with just 15 durability. The only saving grace is geared towards PvP players, though. When you knock out another player, you’ll see a less severe durability loss on their weapons, which many didn’t even realize was a mechanic.
All this follows recent changes to the Expedition process, which saw the typical stash value system removed in favour of a damage-based one that some feel actively promotes more player-vs-player aggression. This has prompted some to say that Embark Studios simply doesn’t care about casual players.
Also, the team basically destroyed the Photoelectric Cloak, one of the best tools against powerful ARC enemies. That didn’t earn them any brownie points, that’s for sure.
Perhaps this is the start of a slow winding down for ARC Raiders. The game’s viewership dropped this year on streaming platforms as competing titles came out and content creators moved on, and the player count is showing a consistent decline, even with these major updates coming out.
What do you think? Do you believe Riven Tides should have been much more impressive to end the Escalation roadmap? Let us know what you’re thinking on the Insider Gaming Discord server.
For more Insider Gaming coverage, check out the news that we played the MindsEye ‘sabotage’ mission
Grant has been gaming for 30+ years and in the industry for 10+. You'll probably find him playing a post-apocalyptic game or an extraction shooter somewhere.
More from Grant Taylor-Hill
The problem with pandering to the PvP players is they have no loyalty, they leave with the next big thing.
Pve players stick around if the content is fresh.
Rule of thumb dont just slap pvp elements to a pve game.
I agree 100%
Word.
Speranza is unstable right now and we have no idea why. Don’t get too disappointed just yet, it’s probably being slow-played.
It feels like Buried City 1.5 and not an entirely new map, like Stella Montis did. Hard not to feel underwhelmed. The durability changes are a straight downgrade to an already grindy game. I mostly play PvP and the economy is now: lose a raid lose your gun, win a raid repair your gun 😢🤷
Yeah these devs seem to think nerfing the game more and more to make it harder somehow makes it more engaging. It just makes it more boring and less rewarding.
Think the map its just fine. Looks beautiful. I love that they keep changing it up. People shouldn’t get too comfortable with they’re favorites
I’d say it’s easy to get caught up in perceived negatives. In my view, the weapon durability changes for the higher tier weapons is very positive. It makes using them less expensive/painful. Before now, they all felt like glass cannons.
The changes to Bettina are totally awesome! I loved that weapon before, but always felt it was lacking. Now it feels worthy of the heavy ammo it chews through. And speaking of which, increasing the heavy ammo stacks to 60 is a huge quality of life improvement. You Anvil players should be way stoked for that.
Lastly, don’t forget the community backlash when first encountering the Vaporizer. Many complained it was waaay too hard to fight, so it was hit hard with the nerf bat. It’s very possible that Embark is now playing it safe with this new arc because of the Vaporizer. I love the new Turbine arc, but agree that the current strategy of hanging way back turns what should be an otherwise intense fire fight into a boring sniping session. If the Turbine was actually aggressive, it would be seriously terrifying.
The problem is not fighting the arc. Its that they are a pain in tHe @$$ and you get barely anything from them. Meanwhile you kill a single juiced player and get 50-100k in loot. It needs balancing.
Embark got lucky. They always meant for this game to be pve. Adding pvp immediately made it popular. However, the game wasnt originally designed to be pvp, therefor they had ZERO Knowledge of how to keep it popular along the pvpve line. The farther it gotten from launch the more its leaned into its original intended concept which woukd have tanked upon release. If they want this game to stay fresh they need to get back to the original thing that made it popular in the first place. Passive pve tension that alrdy exists. Increase rewards substantially from arc and looting, and change lobbies to more of a mix of pvp and pve players. You will get griefers who pvp against pve players, but to make it worth it for the pvet players you need to increase the loot they can make it out with (maybe increase safe slot amounts for pve items). Their devs need to do more brainstorming.