What makes a AAA studio? Is it the dimension of the group? The scope? The price range?
Sweden’s Embark Studios – based in 2018 by CEO Patrick Söderlund and a few fellow former workers from Battlefield developer DICE – is just not a large firm, a minimum of in comparison with different corporations in the area. Even now, coming as much as seven-and-a-half-years into its life, the agency solely boasts round 360 members of workers working throughout a number of initiatives.
The event price range of Arc Raiders, Embark’s second title, hasn’t been formally disclosed – Wedbush’s Michael Pachter has stated it’s in the region of $75 million, together with advertising – however it’s secure to say that it pales compared to comparable titles. The sport has bought over 14 million copies since its October 2025 launch.
For Söderlund – who was not too long ago appointed to the govt chairman place at mother or father firm Nexon – being AAA is not about the dimension of the studio; it is about “what you place out.”
“It has nothing to do with how many you might be,” he tells GamesIndustry.biz. “That is not the level. Our ambition is to have the ability to produce high quality and depth in our merchandise that is just like what different groups and studios can do, however clearly with a lot fewer folks.”
As for how you try this, a lot of it, in response to Söderlund, has been about difficult the typical knowledge of making a blockbuster sport.
“We have been a half of it since early on, when seven or ten folks might make a sport,” Söderlund says. “We have been half of this spiralling train of folks, value and time. Now, with the obtainable instruments, pipelines, and know-how, in addition to a totally different approach of constructing and structuring ourselves, we hypothesised that we might do that quicker and higher than in our earlier lives. We rapidly realised we might; we will do a lot higher. We will compete in the AAA area, and we will try this with perhaps a quarter of the price range.”
Efficiencies
An instance of difficult typical knowledge is constructing a panorama. The outdated knowledge is that – to construct one thing of applicable element, each in texture and constancy – it’s worthwhile to have a group doing idea artwork, which is then became a 3D mesh, which is later used to mannequin the panorama. This must be populated with grass, bushes, rocks, buildings, and issues of this nature.
“We realised that duties like texturing, lighting, and placement of objects have been tough, so we tried to see how a lot of this boring work may very well be eliminated,” Söderlund explains.
“We requested what different means of know-how can be found to us. Might we use the topography from Google Maps? We use photogrammetry, taking images of objects to texture property. Can we do a sensible panorama utilizing procedural era and pipelines? Little or no of it’s AI. Quite a bit of it’s reconfiguring what I imagine are outdated methods of working – outdated toolsets, outdated pipelines, outdated engines, and saying there have to be a higher approach of doing this.”
One know-how that Embark has utilised is AI. Each of its video games, The Finals and Arc Raiders, have attracted controversy for the developer’s use of this tech to generate voice strains. One concern that has been raised is that the studio has been utilizing generative AI to interchange actual voice actors, and even that that is a solution to get out of paying actual performers. Söderlund insists that this isn’t the case.
“We re-recorded some of the strains post-launch and made them with actual voices”
“We pay our actors forever spent with us in the sales space and proceed to deliver many of them again as we stock on updating the sport,” the CEO explains. “For choose utilization, we additionally pay them for the approval to license their voices by means of text-to-speech for strains that are not as important to the immersion of the expertise, largely ping system audio.”
Regardless of the focus on the studio’s use of AI on this regard, Söderlund says that “a lot” of its video games’ voice strains are recorded from performers, and says that there are fewer AI voice strains in Arc Raiders now than when it was launched.
“We re-recorded some of the strains post-launch and made them with actual voices,” he says. “There may be a high quality distinction. An actual skilled actor is healthier than AI; that is simply how it’s. We take a look at [AI] before everything as a manufacturing device. We will check issues internally. We will check 15 totally different strains with out recording them, after which we all know what to file. It is also a approach for us to work, not exchange actors. We do not essentially imagine in changing people with AI all the time.”
Area of interest focusing on
In relation to Embark’s portfolio, there’s free-to-play group shooter The Finals – well-trodden floor for the video games business – and Arc Raiders, an extraction shooter. This style has traditionally been area of interest, with video games like Escape from Tarkov boasting each large ranges of depth and a large studying curve. After Embark pivoted Arc Raiders from a co-op third-person shooter to an extraction shooter, the studio seems to have taken a web page from Blizzard of outdated by taking a area of interest, inaccessible style and making it mass-market.
“We believed that there is one thing actually thrilling about the extraction shooter, however we additionally felt like there may very well be a broader time period than simply shooter – it may very well be extra like an extraction journey,” Söderlund explains. “We believed that we might make it much more accessible. We began enjoying a ton of extraction video games whereas constructing Arc Raiders, particularly after we pivoted. I bought caught in a lot of these video games. I truly genuinely like them. However having a participant spend the first two hours of a sport expertise in the menu is not a mass-market method.
“At the identical time, they’d one thing that was fairly cool. Many of these video games have a tremendous loyal, long-standing consumer base. We appreciated the high-stakes gameplay of going out, on the lookout for one thing, discovering it, and deciding whether or not to financial institution or not financial institution what you’ve got discovered. We believed there is perhaps a possibility to make this a little extra mass-market. We believed that the style was going to develop and that we might in all probability assist it develop if we did a good job.”
Arc Raiders is just not alone in the more and more standard extraction style. Lately, Bungie launched its personal take on this sport kind in Marathon, a launch that Söderlund argues might be a “bit extra hardcore” than Embark’s title, however says that there’s a lot to love about the Future maker’s method.
“I really feel like the sport is extra PvP [player vs player] inclined,” the exec says. “PvE [player vs environment] would not really feel like the focus of that sport. However there are a lot of issues in there that I truly like that they’ve accomplished nicely. I like that what I do in the sport is linked to my development. There are numerous issues in there that I truly assume they’ve accomplished a good job with.
“I do know their technical check final yr was closely criticised. Whether or not that was correct or truthful, I can not let you know. However what I can let you know is that, despite the fact that the suggestions could also be a little blended, it seems to be like the group has accomplished a actually good job of turning what was a large drawback round in a very quick interval of time. That is uncommon. So credit score to that group and to the work that they’ve accomplished with the sport. I hope that they do nicely.”
Battlefield layoffs
Earlier this month, EA made layoffs inside the 4 studios that labored on Battlefield 6, DICE, Criterion, Motive, and Ripple Impact. That is regardless of the indisputable fact that the sport bought extremely nicely, shifting seven million models in its first three days on sale and going on to be the best-selling sport of the yr in the US in 2025.
Söderlund’s heritage clearly contains a stint helming Battlefield franchise developer DICE, earlier than going on to carry a sequence of high-level positions at EA. The business veteran says these job cuts are “clearly not good” for both the builders or the writer, however there are enterprise realities to contemplate.
“I do not assume that is an EA-specific drawback. It is a drawback throughout our business”
“I really feel for them. They did a actually good job with Battlefield 6,” he says. “After all, I additionally see that they’ve had a lot of groups and a lot of folks on that venture, and I believe that they should right-size with a view to run an environment friendly enterprise. Typically it’s worthwhile to make powerful choices to do nicely by the people who find themselves nonetheless there. It is powerful. We have seen a ton of layoffs in the previous years. That’s one thing that we’ve got been attempting to keep away from, and we have been monitoring very intently. I believe that speaks to what we’re attempting to do. We change into a little much less delicate to these varieties of swings as we attempt to do a lot extra with fewer folks. I do not know precisely what triggered the layoffs or who was affected, sadly, so I can not actually have an opinion, however I do not assume that is an EA-specific drawback. It is a drawback throughout our business.”
By this, Söderlund means the regular improve in scope, group sizes and budgets which have considerably outlined the AAA facet of the business for a while now. The truth that 4 large studios have been concerned in making Battlefield 6 helps illustrate the sources that may go into making a fashionable blockbuster.
“I do know a lot of folks at EA. These are very good people. They’re completely investing time, sources, and vitality to optimise their improvement pipelines, however it additionally takes time,” Söderlund says. “Folks want to know that a sport like Battlefield is sitting on outdated legacy programs which you could’t simply exchange in 24 hours. At the identical time as you are modernising a giant firm, it’s a must to play with what you’ve. It should take time for these corporations to change into extra environment friendly and to study this stuff. They do not love the concept of escalating improvement prices and harder markets and laying folks off.”
The long run
The primary seven-and-a-bit years have gone fairly nicely for Embark to date. However what’s the studio’s five-year plan?
“I hope in the subsequent 5 years that we will proceed to have each The Finals and Arc Raiders in a single form or kind in the market with a strong, extremely engaged participant base and that we’ve got two extra video games in the market in order that we’ve got 4 in whole,” Söderlund says. “That might be my hope and ambition.”
4 video games? The exec says that there are new initiatives in improvement at Embark, however whereas the group is “enthusiastic about them” he emphasises that “they’re nonetheless early”, and thus he cannot say a lot.
“We want correct time earlier than we will speak about them,” he says.
“I do not see a want for us to be 600-to-800 folks”
Regardless of Söderlund’s ambition to double the quantity of video games that Embark is working over the subsequent 5 years, he would not really feel that rising its headcount drastically is a requirement.
“I do not see a want for us to be 600-to-800 folks. I do not assume that is going to occur,” he says. “We’re attempting to remind ourselves about the cause why we began the studio and never get carried away and spiral out of management. We’ll in all probability preserve including some folks, as a result of we have to, however generally, attempt to stay comparatively wise in phrases of how many individuals we’ve got.”
He concludes: “You will not see us develop to hundreds of folks. That is not going to occur.”