Embark Studios Says Marathon’s Reception “Was a Great A/B Test” for ARC Raiders
Bungie delayed its upcoming shooter, Marathon, indefinitely in June 2025 after receiving negative feedback from its closed alpha test.
That feedback, however, became a useful “A/B test” for the developers of ARC Raiders, who learned from how players reacted to Marathon’s design choices and made adjustments to improve their own game.
How Marathon’s Reception and Feedback Helped ARC Raiders
According to Virgil Watkins, design director at Embark Studios, the coincidence of both games running playtests around the same time turned into a valuable “A/B test.”
Speaking with PC Gamer, Watkins said the timing wasn’t planned, but it gave them a chance to see how players reacted to each game’s design choices.
“It was very coincidental that they had their test around the time we did,” he said. “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.”
While both games are part of the extraction shooter genre, they each have their own style. Watching how players reacted to both helped Embark learn what worked best.
He also said he didn’t follow Marathon’s tests too closely since most were limited, but he found “the art style very evocative.” He added, “I’m personally curious to see how that ends up. I hope to see more of that in the future.”
Both ARC Raiders and Marathon are still in development and are among the most anticipated extraction shooters of the moment. ARC Raiders launches on October 31, while Marathon continues development with no confirmed release window yet.
Meanwhile, ARC Raiders’ open beta, called the Server Slam, was a huge success. It reached an impressive peak of nearly 190,000 concurrent players on Steam alone, showing the strong anticipation for the title ahead of its full release.
In other news, Embark Studios sees ARC Raiders as a 10-year live-service game and explains why no roadmap is planned before its release.
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