Embark teases multiple new Arc Raiders maps for 2026 and a wider content roadmap

Design lead Virgil Watkins says a roadmap will arrive "sometime soon" and that Embark plans to parcel out maps, weapons, objectives, and enemies across 2026.

Embark Studios is preparing a 2026 content roadmap for Arc Raiders after the game passed 12 million players in a few months, and design lead Virgil Watkins says the studio will release maps, weapons, objectives, and enemies over the coming year. The studio plans to reveal the roadmap “sometime soon,” Watkins told GamesRadar.

Watkins said Embark is still deciding the exact cadence for releases but confirmed the team will “parcel that out across the coming year.” He framed the roadmap as a mix of reactive and proactive design. Some content will respond to how players are engaging with the game. A larger portion will be focused on moving the experience forward by pairing new maps with thematic and gameplay changes so each update feels like a distinct event.

On new maps, Watkins talked about ambitions beyond mere size. He noted differences in perceived scale and density across existing maps. “If you look at the actual land area, it’s not the biggest, but it feels huge,” he said of Blue Gate. By comparison, Spaceport is roughly 1.6 by 1.4 kilometers in pure land area, while Buried City and Blue Gate are about one by one. Density and interior layouts change how big a map feels and how it plays.

Watkins said Embark wants to pair new maps with new kinds of experiences. That could mean special map or weather conditions, different enemy types or compositions, or changes to loot and tech availability. Stella Montis, he noted, brought rarer tech and new blueprints and included an enemy called the Shredder that currently only appears there.

“How do we keep not necessarily escalating all the time, but giving you a new way of play, a new way to approach, making you make different decisions with things you’ve already been using in one context, and trying to use it in a different way in another context?” Watkins said. He used examples such as new uses for zip lines or greater utility for mines and noise makers depending on level design.

Watkins was explicit that players will see a range of map sizes. “There are going to be multiple maps coming this year, and I think it’s going to be across a spectrum of size to try to facilitate different types of gameplay. So you might see some that are smaller, and you might see some that are even grander than what we’ve got now,” he said.

Practical performance limits are part of the planning. Watkins said server and client performance affect design choices. “We can have X players and arc present before the server explodes and we can’t run anymore. So that influences some of our choice making. And client performance. Dam, for example, is kind of right up to the line for performance because it has some pretty far vistas, and it’s also very dense and quite complicated in terms of the number of props and actors and buildings and stuff there.”

He also described pacing considerations that shape map design. The team balances spawn counts, travel times, collapse speeds, drone and player density, and loot dispersion and value. Those factors guide how a space plays and whether it leans more toward PvE or PvP interaction. On dense interiors Watkins said, “When you create a dense interior that’s sort of spider nest-y, it’s going to evoke” PvP-leaning play.

Embark has not published the roadmap yet. Watkins suggested the studio will reveal a chunk of plans soon and that new content will arrive across 2026 rather than in a single drop.

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