ARC Raiders’ oppressive flying bots were inadvertently able to ‘see through trees and bushes’ in recent server slam playtest 

ARC Raiders has quickly become a top-anticipated title after multiple very positive playtests, including last weekend’s Server Slam that had almost 200,000 players online on Steam at its peak.

The game’s devs at Embark Studios came back with an update on the Server Slam this afternoon, thanking players for their participation, but also bringing some very useful information and an explanation as to why those pesky flying ARCs were so annoying.

“It turns out their awareness was a bit too high, allowing them to essentially see through trees and bushes,” Embark said. “This made their vision unintentionally over-powered, but we’ve adjusted what they can see now, so expect a fairer fight at launch.”

This makes a lot of sense to me. The flying ARCs like the Wasp, Hornet, Snitch, or powerful Rocketeer felt a bit over-tuned in the Server Slam, so it’s good to know that their vision may be taken down a notch in the full game. Other balancing changes will also be made, according to the dev.

Embark also made note that player reports on stability problems helped the team find “even more solutions leading up to launch day to ensure a smooth launch experience,” along with squashing bugs and helping to identify game balance with suggested improvements.

One other area of note from the dev was the Dam Tower, which the studio saw “many of you bravely, and perhaps a little too easily” access, and so it will be fixed and tweaked for launch “to keep the challenge sharp.”

I have never been the biggest fan of extraction shooters, but ARC Raiders feels quite polished and fun, and I think that we may see some big numbers in the title when it launches on consoles and PC next week on Oct. 30.

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