Arc Raiders devs 'tortured' each other during playtests

Arc Raiders developers ended up torturing one another during playtests, Embark Studios production director Caio Braga said at his Game Developers Conference panel 'When Your AAA Game Isn't Fun: The ARC Raiders Story of Starting Over with Intent.' The team gave different groups autonomy to pursue their own visions, then staged what Braga called 'the playtest battles' to see which approach worked.

Braga offered an example: the weapons team tuned guns to 'feel amazing,' letting players 'melt Arc like butter' and enjoy spectacular physics. On the next playtest the Arc team reworked the enemy AI so harshly that 'all of a sudden you're playing a Souls game, and your weapons mean nothing.' The back-and-forth showed how competing priorities could undo each other's work.

The developers even showed a clip of streamer Shroud summing up 'game dev in a nutshell' to underline their struggles, and admitted, 'We really did – twice.'

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