Marathon's disastrous beta test was "a very great A/B test" for Arc Raiders, according to technical director

Arc Raiders technical director Virgil Watkins has said that Arc Raiders’s April playtest coinciding with Marathon’s previous closed beta was a coincidence, but acted as “a very great A/B test” for Embark Studios’ own extraction shooter.

Arc Raiders, which recently had its final open beta – the server slam – ahead of its launch on the 30th October, has been in development for a good while. The game has drummed up a lot of hype during that time, but certainly gained a surge of excitement around it, in part due the prior beta’s proximity to Marathon’s initial showing. Players could compare and contrast both games, and found Marathon wanting.

Speaking to PC Gamer, Watkins expanded on his perspective on this moment, and what it meant for the team at Arc Raiders developer Embark Studios.

Watkins said: “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.”