It’s always exhilarating for the gaming industry when various experienced developers come together to form a new studio. Embark Studios is no different; it is a game studio founded by industry veterans and DICE developers in 2018. The newly formed studio also includes former DICE Head, Patrick Soderlund. The first batch of Embark Studios titles is almost ready to be served and it seems like we have a release date of when that will be happening.
In August 2019, Nexon, a South Korean video game publisher that releases online video games for PC and mobile platforms, fully acquired Embark Studios. Since then, the studio has been brewing several unannounced projects. They have revealed plenty of information about their incubating titles every so often. Recently, in an annual letter to Nexon shareholders from the CEO of Nexon, Owen Mahoney, many details were unveiled concerning the upcoming titles.
One of the most anticipated projects from the studio is an upcoming FPS title that is getting a release date of 2023. Not a lot is known about this title at the moment, however. It seems to be code-named “Discovery”; according to a rumor, albeit, the finalized name of the game seemingly is “The Finals”, which was trademarked just three months ago, thus solidifying this rumor.
In the annual letter, Owen Mahoney mentions, “We plan to launch several Virtual Worlds in the coming 12–18 months that we have not yet talked broadly about. One is the second game from Embark, code-named Discovery which we plan to launch within 12 months of ARC Raiders.” The Finals is expected to launch sometime in the second half of 2023 if Arc Raiders launches by the end of 2022.
The first title to be released by Embark Studios is Arc Raiders, which appears to be a free-to-play cooperative game based on a third-person point-of-view. The title is scheduled for release later this year on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. Arc Raiders was first revealed during The Game Awards 2021 and since, has caught the eyes of many players. Only time will tell whether the game has what it takes to stand up against more established FPS titles or not, however.
Overall, Owen Mahoney mentioned a few more games in the annual letter. So, we can look forward to the birth of various games from Embark Studios in the coming future. Considering the experience of the developers behind the wheel, the expectations that players have from the studio is rather high. Talking about upcoming games, Skate 4 has recently entered playtesting and may be revealed by Electronic Arts soon (further details here).
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