Arc Raiders' robots aren’t actually learning, design director says

Since launch some players have suggested Arc Raiders' enemies are adapting to human habits—searching familiar hiding spots, taking better angles on players, even squeezing into tighter spaces. Fans have speculated the Arcs might eventually hunt down rats because they learn where they hide.

The idea appears to trace back to a 2021 talk by Embark's Tom Soldberg about using machine learning to teach in-game enemies to move and navigate more organically rather than hand-animating every motion. Virgil Watkins joined Embark as a senior technical designer in October 2021 and has been Arc Raiders' design director since February 2022.

Watkins said last week that the apparent smarts are the result of designers and engineers crafting their behaviours: "That's just us in the way we author them." He clarified Embark uses AI only in the original videogame sense, not with language models. "The machine learning is literally only for teaching them to walk and navigate the environment.

arc raiders, robots, machine learning, game ai, embark, virgil watkins, tom soldberg, design director, enemy ai, navigation