The Arc Raiders Design Director has described the timing of Bungie’s Playtest for Marathon as being fortuitously timed, launching alongside their own playtest earlier this year. With both titles being extraction shooters, Embark Studios’ Virgil Watkins stated this overlap was “a great A/B test for us,” calling it useful to compare not just the feedback from their own title, but the feedback from Bungie’s as well. Since both games featured unique elements and features, he stated it was helpful to “compare and contrast how some of those things shook out.”
In a conversation with PC Gamer, Watkins stated:
It was very coincidental that they had their test around the time we did. 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.
Arc Raiders recently ended their latest playtest, called ‘Server Slam’, which managed to hit massive numbers on Steam with a peak concurrent count of 189,668, making it the biggest extraction shooter on Steam by the numbers, as well as the most played game over the past weekend. These numbers suggest the game is heading for a big launch when it finally does release on October 30.
Compared to the playtest of Marathon, Arc Raiders was heavily praised as well. Due to player feedback from that initial playtest, Bungie announced that it would be delaying Marathon, which was originally slated to release in September, with no new date having been given as of yet. Currently, an invite-only technical test for the Sony-owned IP is planned for North America and Europe for October 22-28, and it will be available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, and Steam.
Bungie Stated on this upcoming technical test:
This is an important checkpoint for us as we test our improvements since Alpha, including three maps, five runner shells, prox chat, re-tuned combat pacing, solo queue, deeper environmental storytelling, and more. That said, the Technical Test build is a work in progress and will only include a portion of what’s planned for Marathon’s full release, focused on the early player experience.
Arc Raiders will be available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, and PC for $39.99 for the Standard Edition and $59.99 for the Deluxe Edition. Both of these versions will be available on October 30 at 6 am EST.
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