Arc Raiders is reworking its crafting system after acknowledging the “one piece of feedback [that] kept coming up” from players was the “pain point” of gathering missing materials.
“One of the things we care most about as a development team is making sure every moment you spend in Arc Raiders feels purposeful,” developer Embark Studios wrote in a blog published over the weekend. “Your time matters, and we don’t want you spending it clicking through menus when you could be out raiding.
“That’s why we listen closely to what you tell us. And one piece of feedback kept coming up: ‘I’m spending too much time crafting’.”
ARC Raiders – Official Flashpoint Update Trailer.Watch on YouTube
As a result, the team acknowledged that “jumping through multiple screens to [recycle something] was a pain point,” and that “friction was getting in the way of the fun”.
To combat this, Embark has introduced a new “Acquire Resources” button to streamline the way of acquiring missing materials. When you hit it, you’ll get a list of every available source where you can “get what you need, whether that’s recycling, buying from Celeste, or something else”.
Image credit: Embark Studios
“The keyword here is available: if a material is obtainable through your current options, you’ll see it, and you can act on it immediately,” the team added. “No more hunting through menus. No more abandoning crafts out of frustration.”
Though the studio knows that streamlining crafting runs “deeper than one button”, the team said this is “just the start” and it will “keep chipping away at these pain points systematically”.
Embark recently confirmed it had re-recorded some of its AI-generated voice lines, acknowledging “there is a quality difference” between lines recorded by human actors and those generated by AI.
“We use AI as tools to assist in some content creation, but it’s always in the context of creativity, as an expression of the team,” CCO Stefan Strandberg told Eurogamer back in October.
