The recently announced ARC Raiders gives its developers at Embark Studios a chance to innovate, an opportunity they didn't have in their previous roles when working on the Battlefield series. As an established and long-running FPS franchise, Battlefield is set in its ways and too much change can bring ire from fans. Made up of many former EA, DICE, and Ripple Effect employees, Embark Studios is already working on a project that is trying to move the medium forward in ARC Raiders, while Battlefield continues to struggle in attempts to imitate popular trends.
There's nothing necessarily wrong with FPS franchises staying in their wheelhouse. Call of Duty is perennially successful with only minor changes to its formula year after year, and Halo Infinite is being celebrated in many reviews for being a return to form after the divisive Halo 5: Guardians. Many prominent criticisms of Battlefield 2042 are related to its abandonment of features universally included in its predecessors, and a number of the game's problems seem to have arisen out of Battlefield 2042 originally being a battle royale, with a major shift in the middle of development to make it a regular Battlefield title. EA keeps trying to morph Battlefield into something it isn't for the sake of potentially profiting off of current gaming trends. ARC Raiders might instead be able to sidestep some of these issues.
Instead of working to iterate on features the series is known for - more thorough destruction, for instance - Battlefield stifles creativity to mimic other popular games, a phenomenon which Tom Henderson claims has lead to many developers leaving DICE in recent years. In fact, all of the founding developers listed on Embark Studios' website previously worked for EA, DICE, or Ripple Effect (previously known as DICE LA prior to its name change). Working on a renowned series like Battlefield can certainly be fulfilling, but even with the little amount of information on ARC Raiders, Embark Studios appears to be working on game mechanics that enter exciting territory for video games.
In a fascinating blog post, Embark discusses how it is using machine learning to teach AI robots to walk with unscripted animations. The studio's aim is to have the spider-like robots in ARC Raiders react to their environment and obstacles naturally, and watching one of the blog post's videos show the AI getting hit with a cube, stumbling to maintain its balance, then continue on its way is very impressive. Those very same robots can be seen in ARC Raiders' explosive reveal trailer, getting taken down as Robyn's "Dancing On My Own" plays. The developer notes that this "gives rise to emergent gameplay - moments in games that even [the developers] as creators of the game could never have anticipated." It's an intriguing prospect for a game about machines invading the Earth.
This seems to stand in stark contrast to the recent exploits of the EA-led Battlefield series, which has now attempted and failed to deliver a successful battle royale twice. For many, 2042 is the least Battlefield-like Battlefield game, and while plenty of players are still enjoying it despite its faults, it's fairly safe to say that 2042 is a step in the opposite direction of what a sizeable portion of longtime fans want from the series. Envisioning 2042 if its BR development had been completed seems like it might have been criticized as an Apex Legends clone. Devolving a game into profit-chasing mimicry is a disappointing strategy for consumers, and a Battlefield universe is the wrong answer too. The founding of Embark Studios has allowed some developers to do work on ARC Raiders that doesn't seem to be a part of the business plan under EA, which could well turn out to be a good thing for the final product.
Source: Embark Studios (website, blog), Tom Henderson
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