While Arc Raiders certainly isn’t alone in featuring paid cosmetics and, soon, battle passes, the game has come under fire from fans since launch for its pricey skins and concerns that some items in the upcoming premium battle passes will be “pay-to-win.” In a blog post outlining some pricing changes, however, developer Embark Studios is responding to player feedback and concern, lowering prices on existing cosmetics and clarifying what fans can expect when premium battle passes arrive.
Backlash against expensive skin pricing in Arc Raiders swiftly followed the game’s release on October 30. With the game selling for $40 rather than being free-to-play, fans weren’t too happy about skins in the premium store costing half that. Meanwhile, the limited customization options associated with cheaper items like face paints have seemed to discourage folks from getting too excited over them.
But according to an official blog post today, Embark Studios is lowering prices on skins and refunding folks (in premium currency) who purchased them at the older, more expensive price. Furthermore, the studio has clarified that any usable gameplay items found in upcoming battle passes will be in the free versions available to all players. “The focus for premium [battle passes] are based on cosmetics and convenience,” the developer wrote.
As some fans have pointed out, since you can lose gear in an extraction shooter just as easily as you can find it, gameplay items in a premium battle pass wouldn’t be locked to a player and thus wouldn’t be as unfair in theory, but it’s still nice to see the game avoid any accusations of being pay-to-win.
Duo matchmaking was secretly enabled
Since launch, players have asked for duo-only matchmaking, allowing pairs of folks to venture out into games populated by other pairs. Embark Studios confirmed that it has “silently tested and enabled Duo prioritized matchmaking” earlier this week. While it cautioned that “you may [still] run into differing constellations of players other than your own,” the developer described the matchmaking system like this:
First, we prioritize Solos and Squads to play separately. After that, we prioritize Duos to play with other Duos, and for Trios to play with Trios.
As a solo player, I haven’t been too bothered by mismatched player counts in squads out there, but hopefully this will help balance out PvP skirmishes in the near future.
