This New Game Dumps Free-To-Play Model, Changes To $40 Premium Release

As part of Gamescom Opening Night Live, Embark Studios--which was co-founded by Battlefield veteran Patrick Soderlund--revealed a new trailer for the PvPvE third-person shooter Arc Raiders and also confirmed a key detail about its pricing plan.

Arc Raiders was announced as a free-to-play game, but it is now shifting to a premium model and will cost $40 at launch on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S. A public technical test will be available October 24-27 on Steam.

Regarding the price change, Arc Raiders executive producer Aleksander Grøndal said, "It became increasingly clear to us during development that a premium model is a better fit for the experience we're building with Arc Raiders."

The developer added: "This shift allows us to focus on what truly matters for this game--creating an engaging, balanced, and replayable action survival experience."

In Arc Raiders, you play as a "Raider," a soldier fighting for survival and scavenging resources from the world's surface and attempt to extract safely to the underground colonies. However, "Arc" machines are trying to stop you, as are other human players.

Stefan Strandberg, the co-founder and creative director at Embark, said in a statement that Arc Raiders has "changed and evolved" over the course of its development. However, Strandberg said the game's world has remained unchanged.

"Our inspiration draws from current-day themes taken to their extreme, like the prospect of colonizing space, at a time when the relationship between man and machine is becoming increasingly fraught," Strandberg said.

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