Like pretty much any game, the development of Arc Raiders wasn't a smooth ride. In fact, the entire PvE game that was shown off years ago was almost entirely scrapped in favor of the extraction shooter we have now, but developers at Embark Studios explain how failed ideas led to finding the fun.

"We spent the majority of our first year just building tools," founder and CEO Patrick Soderlund said in a new developer documentary about the making of one of 2025's biggest hits. "I also knew that we weren't going to get things right. We were going to make a ton of mistakes along the way and we had to plan for those mistakes, and kind of get ourselves in a cushion to be able to make those mistakes."

The Embark head explains it quite succinctly here: "Guess what? If you're trying to send people to Mars, you will crash a bunch of rockets. We crashed a bunch of rockets."

Technical designer Nora Silow remembers that one of the earliest concepts she worked on was a "four-legged little pouncing" dog that would run around the map. It's "long gone," of course, as are many other ideas.

Paul Greveson, senior technical artist, elaborated that "sometimes ideas written down on paper" don't hold up when implemented into the game itself. "It sounded really cool when we were talking about it, but actually, now, I'm just running around looking up all the time."

"Finding the fun isn't always a thing that you cannot just automatically say, 'We'll just do this and it will be fun'", executive producer Aleksander Grondal explained. "What you know is: you work and you put the thing in and it's not working like you want it to. So, then, you need to start reworking it and reiterating on it and maybe rethinking some of your initial assumptions… That comes from playing the game and playing around with what you've created."

Arc Raiders players mourn their beloved Arc killer, the Hullcracker, after Embark nerfs it into the pavement: "No idea why they'd do this"

While a lack of voice chat wasn't the biggest problem with FBC: Firebreak when it released in June, it was certainly one of the issues that led it to fall flat with myself and players in general. Given Firebreak is a cooperative shooter where teamwork is crucial to survival, being able to communicate with friends verbally is kinda important. True, there are plenty of third-party options for voice-chat these days. But sorting that out can be a pain in the arse, especially when you're playing across multiple platforms.

Better, if you're making a dedicated cooperative experience, to ensure voice chat is integrated into that. It took five months, but Firebreak has finally done this. In a Steam post Remedy announced that it has added "cross-platform voice chat" into all versions, letting you finally gab with your pals in the Oldest House without migrating to Discord.

Sadly, it isn't all good news on the Firebreak front. In the same post, Remedy also explained that Firebreak's next major update, Rogue Protocol, has been delayed into 2026. Remedy originally planned to release this alongside voice chat, but explains the mode needs "a bit more time" in the oven. This is because Rogue Protocol will introduce a whole new game mode to Firebreak, so Remedy believes a slightly longer development "will help us make sure everything feels right: polished, balanced, and worthy of your time."

Remedy provided some insight into how the new mode will work, however. It's called Endless Shift, and from the sounds of things, it's basically a wave-based survival mode. According to Remedy, players will be dropped into a "sealed area" of the Oldest House with minimal equipment, tasked with holding off a large incursion of Hiss. Eliminated enemies drop a substance called Corruption, which "can be spent between rounds to unlock powerful upgrades, weapons, and enhancements".

These upgrades can be straightforward power boosts, or they can "twist your abilities in unexpected ways." Upgrades also stack, which Remedy says results in "wild, game-breaking synergies" that you'll deploy against new enemy combinations and elite foes. The mode comes with its own system of rewards, too, some of which can be brought into the existing, Left 4 Dead-ish game mode.

In short, it's Firebreak by way of Vampire Survivors. Hardly the most original idea in the world, but it could be a smart one, nonetheless. Age of Empires 4 recently introduced a similar mode in its latest DLC, and that proved a big hit with fans. Hence, it's entirely possible Endless Shift could be the shot in the arm Firebreak needs.

And Firebreak really does need it. The recent Breakpoint update failed to restore player confidence in Remedy's shooter, and as such the studio has been forced to eat a non-cash impairment of €14.9 million. If anything, I'm surprised Remedy continues to support it, so I hope its dedication pays off next year.