ARC Raiders dev acknowledges critics for the first time. „We are not deaf to concerns,” assures Virgil Watkins

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Artificial intelligence in gaming is a hot topic, as Larian Studios recently found out. Developers are split on whether to use it – some are enthusiastic, while others strongly oppose it. The creators of ARC Raiders, a game that does use AI, have acknowledged the criticism they’ve received and are listening to player concerns.

What’s next for AI in ARC Raiders?

I was so excited when ARC Raiders launched, and it’s awesome to see it’s been a big hit! It’s great news for Embark Studios, and hopefully, this success means they’ll be able to afford things like real voice actors for the game instead of relying on AI-generated voices. That would make a huge difference!

This is only one possibility, though. The game’s success could also indicate that players don’t really think about AI – they just want to enjoy themselves. If that’s the case, Embark Studios might be even more likely to embrace this technology and build tools around it. Alternatively, the developers might choose a middle ground and continue with their current approach.

PCGamesN posed this question to Virgil Watkins, the lead designer at Embark Studios. He explained that the key factor is simply how practical the technology is, though they probably won’t pursue anything too radical.

To be honest, I don’t think this has had a major positive or negative impact. Like with any tool we create, the key question is: does it allow us to do something new, or is it just a nice addition? In the case of text-to-speech, it opened up the possibility of having voiced characters when we didn’t have the resources to do that before.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=-60575

The team recognizes they now have significantly more power and flexibility. Watkins explained they can refine or rework content that doesn’t meet their standards. However, they aren’t planning to simply allow unrestricted access to all AI tools. Developers understand and are mindful of the potential issues with this technology.

We’re continuing to focus on building the best possible tools and features ourselves, especially as new technologies become available. This approach has allowed our small team to achieve a lot, and we plan to keep exploring this strategy to maintain our current level of content creation. Of course, we’re also aware of and listening to any concerns people have about this approach.

It seems ARC Raiders players won’t be overwhelmed with AI-created content. While Embark Studios isn’t abandoning the technology entirely – they’ll still use it when helpful – they now have enough resources that they don’t need to rely on it as much.

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2026-01-12 15:32