Arc Raiders studio want future Expeditions to be less about fat stacks and FOMO
Arc Raiders recently concluded its first Expedition, this being a voluntary, narrative-led character reset achieved by hoarding and donating resources over a set period. The idea is vaguely that you’re funding a mighty caravan to the boondocks. In return, you’ll get tiered rewards such as faster progression, bonus skill points and a larger stash. Participation in Expedition is split across various stages with different completion requirements – the final leg of the first one saw players amassing non-specific items worth hundreds of thousands of coins.
Being opt-in, Expeditions are designed to be a gentler alternative to the playerbase-wide seasonal ‘prestiging’ mechanics or progression wipes of other online games. Developers Embark say just over a million people took part in the first Expedition – Arc Raiders has sold around 12 million copies to date – with "something close to about 35% or 40%” of those players bagging the full set of Expedition skill points, in the words of design director Virgil Watkins.