Dare to Dance with Giants: Arc Raiders Dev Bets Big Against CoD and Battlefield (Again!)
AI Gaming News Author · Eurogamer ·
Embark Studios' CEO Patrick Soderlund is surprisingly unfazed about launching Arc Raiders between Call of Duty and Battlefield, betting on innovation and a 'long journey' rather than shying away from giants, a strategy reminiscent of Titanfall 2's challenging release.
Right, so apparently, some folks at Embark Studios reckon they can throw their hat into the ring right when Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 and Battlefield 6 are duking it out. Madness, you say? Perhaps. But then again, a bit of digital wizardry often looks like madness until it works, doesn't it?
We're talking about Arc Raiders here, Embark's upcoming co-op extraction shooter, and the chap leading the charge, CEO Patrick Soderlund, seems as cool as a cucumber carved from pure ice. He's reportedly not even breaking a sweat over this decidedly 'uncomfortable' launch window. You'd think releasing a new game between two of the biggest, most established shooters on the planet would be akin to trying to sneak a goblin past a dragon's lair during feeding time. But Soderlund's got a different take, as revealed in an interview with Christopher Dring at The Game Business.
"People may look at that and say, 'what the hell are they doing?'" Soderlund admitted, almost preempting our collective head-scratching. "We have spent a lot of time looking at this from multiple angles and you know, for right or wrong, we believe that the game can launch there. This is the start of a long journey. It needs to start somewhere." Fair dinkum, mate. Every epic quest has a beginning, even if that beginning is a bit... crowded.
Now, a statement like "it needs to start somewhere" could be seen as a brave declaration of intent, or perhaps a slight shrug of inevitability. But Soderlund's not one to just throw a dart at a calendar. This isn't his first rodeo riding into a crowded arena. You see, our man Patrick was the executive vice president at EA when Titanfall 2 — a truly brilliant shooter that suffered an equally baffling release date, sandwiched between Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare and Battlefield 1 — hit the shelves. And we all remember how that went, don't we? A critical darling, a player favourite... but commercially, it just couldn't catch a break against the juggernauts.
So, what's different this time? Has Soderlund learned to cast a new kind of protective charm, or is he just doubling down on a risky spell? He reckons it comes down to a simple, yet profoundly challenging philosophy: "not being complacent enough to believe that we can build something without making a meaningful impact or innovation. We have to bring something so that people pay attention. And if we've done a good enough job, maybe they'll stick around. But in order for them to break away from what they're already playing, there needs to be an attraction."
And there it is, the crux of the biscuit. "Meaningful impact or innovation." In a market saturated with shooters, often feeling like minor iterations of themselves, simply being 'good' isn't enough anymore, is it? We've seen countless games, even solid ones, vanish into the ether because they didn't offer a compelling *reason* for players to drop their current digital obsession. What kind of magic is Arc Raiders cooking up to genuinely attract that attention? The original article mentions the game has already garnered a "substantial amount of positive attention from players" and an "intense feeling of virality." This suggests Embark might be tapping into something beyond just raw gameplay mechanics; perhaps it's the art style, the unique co-op focus, or a fresh take on the extraction shooter genre that feels genuinely new. They've certainly got pedigree, with The Finals already proving their mettle in carving out a niche with innovative gameplay and an eye for player engagement.
But the landscape itself is also vastly different from 2016. Back then, live service games were still finding their feet, and the dominance of traditional premium releases was more pronounced. Today, free-to-play models, community-driven content, and the sheer power of streaming and content creation can amplify a genuinely innovative title in ways that weren't quite as potent a decade ago. A game doesn't need a multi-million dollar marketing campaign to go viral; it needs to *earn* its virality through genuine player excitement. If Arc Raiders can hit that sweet spot of innovation and community engagement, perhaps the release date becomes less of a death sentence and more of a daring gambit.
So, is this a calculated risk born from a decade of hard-won experience, or an optimistically chaotic dive into the deep end? Soderlund's confidence certainly isn't misplaced if Arc Raiders truly offers something fresh enough to make gamers put down their CoD controllers and Battlefield binoculars. It's a bold move, mate, and one that absolutely begs the question: can a genuinely innovative new IP not only survive but *thrive* when caught between two titans? Only time, and a whole lot of player attention, will tell. But you've got to admire the sheer gumption of it all.
*This article was inspired by an interview with Patrick Soderlund by Christopher Dring at The Game Business, originally reported by Connor Makar for Eurogamer on October 29, 2025.*
Tags: Arc Raiders, Embark Studios, Game Development, Gaming Industry, Shooters
Original article: Eurogamer