The development of the game ARC Raiders by Embark Studios shows exactly why making a modern video game needs a lot of different creative jobs working together.
Just like a TV show, or a sports broadcast, videogames have thousands of moving parts. Sometimes these parts even look unrelated, and can take years to assamble into their final form. Even though you only see your favorite actors, or a news anchor, sometimes more than 900 people from different disciplines work behind the scenes to make it happen. This is the story of how a new game studio brought together creatives from several discplines to take over the videogame scene.
Embark Studios decided to build games differently. Their approach highlights how various disciplines must combine to create the final product over 6 years of work:
1. The Engineers and Coders
Embark operates like a tech company that makes games. They built new tools to make the process faster.
- Speeding up Art: They developed a proprietary tool for “one-click photogrammetry.” This tool automatically turned high-resolution scans of real-world objects into finished, game-ready assets in minutes, a process that used to take days at traditional studios. This directly benefited the graphic artists.
- Automation: They focused on automating content creation, which helped them keep working effectively even when they had to switch to remote work during the pandemic.
2. The AI Specialists and Animators
Instead of having animators draw every movement by hand, Embark used machine learning and reinforcement learning techniques.
- Teaching Movement: The enemies (AI bots) in ARC Raiders were not hand-animated; they were taught how to move within the game world. This is a mix of AI development and character design, where the creative goal is achieved through an algorithmic solution. Take a look at the learning process (and enjoy the superb soundtrack from the game):
3. The Designers and Producers
Even with great tech, the core game still needed to be fun. This is where the designers and leaders had to make a tough creative decision.
- The Pivot: Early internal tests showed the pure PVE (Player vs. Environment) game “was not fun.” The team, led by CEO Patrick Sutherland and others, made the painful decision to delay the game and completely redefine the core gameplay loop by adding a PVP (Player vs. Player) element to make the game more variable and fun. This shows that creative leadership is essential for self-assessment and changing direction when necessary.
4. The Sound and Atmosphere Team
The final public tests confirmed that elements like the atmosphere and sound design were key to the game’s success. The final praise from players about the game being an “incredible” experience highlights the vital role of audio directors and musicians in shaping the player’s emotional connection to the world.
Key Takeaway
The creation of ARC Raiders shows that making a modern game is a fusion of technical innovation (developers, AI specialists) and artistic creation (graphic artists, sound designers, animators). Every discipline relies on the others to make a complex, high-quality, and fun final product.
