Arc Raiders Dev Says Marathon’s Reception Provided Some Clarity

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Okay, so I finally got to play Arc Raiders during their recent Steam ‘server slam’ – basically a big playtest – and it was a blast! The game officially launches on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S on October 30th, but getting hands-on early was awesome. The developers, Embark Studios, said the playtest was super helpful, especially because they were able to learn a lot by comparing the experience to Bungie’s classic game, Marathon. It really gave them some good insights before the full launch.

I read in PC Gamer that Rob Watkins from Embark Studios said launching Arc Raiders and Marathon back-to-back was a really smart move. It let them test out how players reacted to their unique ideas for games within the same type of genre, giving them valuable feedback on what works and what doesn’t.

It was just a coincidence that their test happened around the same time as ours. As far as I know, none of us expected that. It turned out to be a really valuable comparison, because they made different choices than we did, and we could see how those choices played out differently.

So, Bungie’s new game, Marathon, had a rough start. Their first closed alpha test back in April brought up a lot of problems – people were talking about a bad work environment, accusations of art theft, and ultimately, they had to push the release date back from September 23rd, with no new date set yet. On the flip side, I got to play Arc Raiders in their playtest, and it was a blast! They had almost 190,000 people playing at once, and it totally dominated the Steam charts that weekend. It was a huge success!

The different receptions to Arc Raiders and Marathon were valuable learning experiences for Embark Studios, helping them understand what players want from this type of game and refine their own development process. Despite Marathon not being a hit with everyone, Watkins isn’t critical of it. He actually admires Bungie’s work, praising Marathon’s unique visual style and hoping to see more innovative games from them in the future.

He found it fascinating to learn what players thought about specific aspects of the game – what worked for them, what didn’t, and how those experiences might compare to their own. He’s eager to see how things develop and hopes to see more discussions like this going forward.

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2025-10-20 18:39