Arc Raiders Devs Open Up About the Toll of Live-Service Development

Aleksander Grøndal, executive producer on Arc Raiders, is candid about the challenges of transitioning to a live-service model. "Transitioning to live-service is going to be serious hard," he says. "Everyone said that to me.

I've even shared that to other people," he continues. "I was mentally prepared for it to be hard - but I wasn't completely prepared for how hard it was."

Grøndal, who previously worked on major releases for EA. This includes installments of Battlefield and Star Wars: Battlefront. Notes that the team at Embark Studios has been worn down by the constant need to answer to millions of players.

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"The team is super tired. We're putting out content as fast as we can but it's not enough. And perhaps it wasn't necessarily interesting enough as well," he comments.

"I'm proud of what we achieved during the first four months of this year, but at the same time, reports suggest we have to be honest at looking at some of the impacts of that."

Grøndal explains that Embark has slowed down its pace, aiming for slower but bigger rollouts on new features. "We didn't have the time," he says.

"You also have a lot of the cost of just maintaining the game – implementing bug fixes, exploits, and other constraints. We were constantly overshooting our capacity and so it was hard to plan when there's so much to do."

Grøndal emphasizes the importance of protecting both the developers and the players. "It's super important [to protect people]. I can tell you a personal story.

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I was burned out," he remembers. "We'd just shipped a Battlefield game [when I was at EA] and I kept pushing so hard that I had to take a break for five months and go on sick leave because I was completely broken," he says.

Grøndal believes that creating a framework that allows for creative freedom while maintaining a good work-life balance is vital. "It's very important for us to create a framework that allows us to be creative while having a good work-life balance."

As the first anniversary of Arc Raiders approaches, Grøndal's comments offer a glimpse into the challenges faced by the development team. The game has enjoyed a dream year, but the transition to live-service has taken its toll.