Arc Raiders’ design director Virgil Watkins says Bungie’s troubled Marathon test became a “great A/B test” that helped Embark refine what worked and what didn’t for its own upcoming extraction shooter.
Bungie’s Marathon might not have had the best first impression earlier this year, but over at Embark Studios, the game still played a valuable role, just not in the way you’d expect.
Earlier this year, Bungie rolled out its first closed alpha playtest for Marathon, its upcoming extraction shooter. The feedback wasn’t pretty. The test was met with mixed-to-negative reactions from players who expected more from the long-awaited reboot.
Many criticized that the game was missing key features that you’d expect in an extraction shooter game. Add to that the now-infamous art theft controversy, where Marathon’s art director had to publicly apologize after art assets were found in the alpha build of the game, directly ripped from an indie artist without permission. Since then, the game has been stuck in recovery mode, with a delayed release and a new round of invite-only testing running this week.
Meanwhile, Embark Studios’ Arc Raiders has been having a much better time. The free-to-play project turned premium extraction shooter just wrapped up its big “Server Slam” weekend, pulling in around 190,000 concurrent players on Steam and landing in the platform’s top three sellers.
Now, Virgil Watkins, the design director on Arc Raiders, says that Marathon’s disastrous test actually helped Embark sharpen its own design director.
Marathon’s Test Helped Arc Raiders “Compare and Contrast” Key Design Ideas
Speaking to PC Gamer, Watkins said the overlapping release for Bungie’s Marathon test and Embark’s playtest for Arc Raiders was a coincidence, giving both studios a rare opportunity to learn from each other’s choices.
“It was very coincidental that they had their test around the time we did,” Watkins said. “To my knowledge, I don’t think any of us knew that was going to happen. It was a very great A/B test for us, because obviously they made decisions that we didn’t, and vice versa. So we could kind of compare and contrast how some of those things shook out.”
“[It] was quite interesting to follow in what players thought about those certain things, or what did work in their context and didn’t, and what may have worked in ours.”
Watkins added that Embark didn’t pick apart Marathon with a magnifying glass, especially since Bungie’s test was limited in scope, but he was rooting for it to succeed. He also complimented Bungie’s visual approach, calling Marathon’s art style “very evocative” and saying he’s genuinely curious to see how the project evolves.
“I’m personally curious to see how that ends up. I hope to see more of that in the future,” he said.
With Arc Raiders just days away, Embark clearly feels confident in its direction. On the other side, Bungie still needs to build player trust. The developer is holding a closed tech test later this week.
As for what’s changed with Marathon since its closed alpha test, The Game Post exclusively reported several updates the developers have implemented, including the long-requested proximity chat, new Runners, the UESC Marathon ship map, and how it works, and more.
What do you think? Can both Marathon and Arc Raiders find success in the now-crowded extraction space? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
