For those who’ve watched the newest episode of South Park, you may need seen a shock look from one in all the hottest video video games on earth: Arc Raiders.
Embark Studios’ extraction shooter is one in all the most-played video video games on PC and console proper now, with a powerful 4 million copies bought to this point. At one level, it hit over 700,000 concurrent gamers throughout all platforms — a powerful achievement certainly for a brand new IP at a time when so many refuse to be prized away from established live-service behemoths.
Clearly, amongst Arc Raiders’ many followers is somebody behind the making of South Park. In the newest Season 28 episode broadcast this week, known as “Turkey Trot,” Cartman finds Tolkien Black taking part in Arc Raiders on Xbox. The sport seems in a number of scenes, one in all which reveals gameplay footage on a TV.
As noticed by Eurogamer, Ashley St. Germain, advertising chief at Embark, took to LinkedIn to clarify how the unlikely collab occurred.
“There’s lots to be pleased about this 12 months, however I don’t understand how I’m going to high this week. On Monday South Park inquired if a personality may play ARC Raiders in an upcoming episode, on Tuesday we offered footage, and on Wednesday we have been in S28’s “Turkey Trot” episode. Like Tolkien, I suppose a whole lot of us simply can’t put down ARC Raiders. Pleased Thanksgiving! 🦃🍁
That’s… actually shut to the wire! Nevertheless it ought to come as no shock to South Park followers who know a little bit about how its creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, put the present collectively.
Historically, Parker and Stone create every episode week-by-week, which makes for a chaotic manufacturing however topical reveals. However they switched to a biweekly schedule for Season 27, with the elongated manufacturing time permitting the pair extra room to work on every episode. Season 27 had loved massive scores and sparked a lot debate, but it surely additionally suffered an erratic launch schedule. The primary two episodes arrived on the normal weekly schedule, however then the collection switched to a biweekly schedule earlier than the delayed fifth episode, which ended up taking place as the collection finale, aired three weeks later on September 25.
Comedy Central had delayed the Season 27 ender simply hours earlier than it was due to air, with Parker and Stone insisting the blame lay at their door. “Apparently while you do the whole lot at the final minute generally you don’t get it executed,” the pair advised Variety. “This one’s on us. We didn’t get it executed in time. Thanks to Comedy Central and South Park followers for being so understanding. Tune in subsequent week!” So far as we at IGN are conscious, Parker and Stone have missed the scheduled launch of South Park simply as soon as earlier than, due to an influence outage, however by no means for not getting an episode executed in time.
It’s price noting that throughout their San Diego Comedian-Con 2025 panel, which occurred the day after the Season 27 opener aired, Parker mentioned the pair have been not sure what the subsequent episode can be, revealing the choice was “tremendous annoying.”
After all, South Park has a historical past of that includes video video games, maybe most famously World of Warcraft. Certainly, Blizzard’s MMORPG was the focus of the episode, Make Love, Not Warcraft, at a time when it was one in all the hottest video video games on earth. Different video games featured on the present embrace Valve’s Counter-Strike, Rock Band, and Name of Obligation.
Just one episode of South Park Season 28 stays, to be broadcast on December 10.
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Wesley is Director, Information at IGN. Discover him on Twitter at @wyp100. You’ll be able to attain Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.