ARC Raiders “Kind of Falls Apart” if Played in First-Person, Says Design Director

by

Following a successful weekend test of *ARC Raiders*, the game’s developer, Embark Studios, has stated they don’t plan to add a first-person view. Design Director Virgil Watkins explained to PCGamer that *ARC Raiders* was specifically built for a third-person perspective, and switching to first-person would require significant redesign work.

Watkin explained that the game’s immersive world and how players interact with it – including enemies and other players – are significantly enhanced by the high quality work of the animation, audio, and environment teams. This creates a cohesive and engaging experience. He also noted that while some games, like Helldivers 2, successfully use both first-person and third-person perspectives, adding this feature to *ARC Raiders* would require substantial changes to the game.

While a first-person perspective could work, we found third person so effective that we never considered switching. We’ve seen hybrid approaches in games like Helldivers 2, but implementing one would require a major overhaul of our level design. Switching to first person creates very specific viewpoints, and we’d have to rebuild much of our environment to accommodate that.

The third-person viewpoint in the game isn’t just about how it feels to play; it also affects how the game looks. According to Watkins, the details in things like objects and walls were created assuming players wouldn’t be able to get extremely close to them. He explained that if players could zoom in too much, the details wouldn’t hold up. Because of this, a first-person mode for *ARC Raiders* is unlikely, as it wouldn’t offer any real advantages.

During the same interview, Watkins confirmed that Embark Studios is still on track to launch ARC Raiders on October 30th for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S. He explained that while they held a playtest earlier this year, the game wasn’t quite finished and they needed more time before releasing it.

I was really glad to hear people were enjoying how the game *felt* when they played it, but honestly, we still had a ton of work to do under the hood. We had a bunch of features we hadn’t quite finished yet, and there were definitely bugs. Luckily, most of the really bad ones didn’t show up too much in the gameplay footage people were sharing, but we were scrambling to fix a lot of stuff before launch.

You can find more information about *ARC Raiders* and how Embark Studios is approaching server wipes – a common feature in extraction shooter games – by letting players decide if they want to reset their progress.

Read More

2025-10-20 16:11