An Update on Embark Studios' Free-to-Play PC Game (now titled ARC Raiders) - Two New Images

The video version:

The written version:

Embark Studios have been keeping very quiet over the last few months about the cooperative free-to-play action game they’re currently working on. Embark’s very limited marketing for the game, so far, is also the reason you haven’t seen any videos from me for a while - there’s literally been nothing to report on. Up to this point, we’ve only had a handful of concept art images, a couple of game environment test videos and footage of the devs’ photogrammetry trips, alongside one or two high-res rendered images. In addition, we’ve seen a single image of the dev team watching a weekly playtest from early on in development. Now whatever stage Embark are currently at with development of their first game, is a bit of a mystery.

As I mentioned in my last video about Embark Studios, South Korean gaming giant Nexon took a majority shareholding in Embark in 2019 and in a presentation to investors in the last few days, they just happened to include a single new image from the game that we haven’t seen before:

A new concept art image from Embark Studios, showing a game character and some sort of speeder.

The image shows a female character resting against some kind of speeder, with the name ‘Corto,’ the spanish word for “short,” on the side of it. The speeder has a seat on top of it, along with leather saddle bags for the rider’s possessions. The underside of the speeder also seems to have exhaust pipes which are presumably set up in a V-8 style arrangement with four exhausts on each side. In the background, we also see two large symmetrical structures which might be the moving parts of a colossal mechanical gate.

Overall, this image has a very Star Wars feel to it, especially when it comes to the speeder, which I think is probably going to appeal to a lot of people, as long as the game has its own unique flavour of course. From what I’ve seen so far, it appears that the landscapes in the game are going to be vast and rather desolate, so using speeders to move around the map makes a lot of sense. At the same time, hopefully this won’t mean that the game environment is a bit bland.

In addition to the speeder image, I also noticed this new concept art image on the Embark Studios website, which shows two larger speeders travelling over coastal waters while a character looks on:

Concept art showing a character watching two speeders cross the coast in Embark Studios' new free-to-play PC game.

So, we’re getting some idea of what the speeders might look like in-game and what some elements of gameplay might be like.

Embark have given no indication so far when we might see more information about the game, but after about six months of virtual radio-silence from the developer, I’m hoping that we might get a little more insight into the game very soon. I’ll be sure to update you the moment more news about the game comes to light.

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