Gamescom was filled to the brim with release dates, world premiere trailers and more. Among the announcements, ARC Raiders has now received a release date that includes a huge change.
The extraction shooter was initially revealed in 2021 and has seen quite a few delays in release since then. During ONL at Gamescom, we learned that the PvPvE shooter will be blasting its way to PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and cloud streaming at some point in 2025. While the details on the date are a bit foggy, the information given on the change in price and business model for the developers are not.
ARC Raiders was going to be free to play when first announced back in the day, but according to Executive Producer Aleksander Gröndal, that will no longer be the case. They state,
“You may recall that ARC Raiders was announced as a free-to-play game. Today, we announced that ARC Raiders will be released as a $40 premium title. There are many reasons for this change, and they all boil down to our conviction that a premium business model is a better fit for the type of game we’re building.”
That is a big step away from the original free-to-play model that was first introduced to the fans, but according to Embark Studios, this major change will create more balanced, focused, and engaging content for players to enjoy upon release.
With that said, there will be a few opportunities to dive into the title prior to launch, as Gröndal also mentions that between October 24th and 27th, there are plans to host a public tech test on Steam. There is no surefire way to get in on the blasting for that test, but anyone interested can sign up via Steam and hope to be drawn from the hat.
