Forthcoming extraction shooter ARC Raiders will make progression wipes voluntary, through its newly revealed Expedition Project.
Progression wipes essentially reset a player’s progress in a game and are a blunt method of putting all players on an even field. These are used in plenty of shooters, particularly at the start of a new season, but can be controversial. While Escape from Tarkov has had regular wipes, for instance, Destiny 2 developer Bungie recently u-turned on a decision to reset power in its forthcoming Renegades expansion due to player backlash.
ARC Raiders will include voluntary progression wipes, Embark Studios has now explained, but the developer has its own method of implementing them.
“Just to make it clear, we absolutely see the benefits a global wipe provides,” the studio wrote in a blog post. “Veteran players can experience the game fresh, the economy is reset to the baseline, and all players have about the same level of capabilities. At least for a little while.
“However, one thing a mandatory wipe does not do is respect the investment of those players who do not have as much time to play overall.”
The system in ARC Raiders is called the Expedition Project. The explanation is a little complicated, at least until we go hands-on and try it ourselves, but the full game will introduce the Expedition Project at level 20.
This ongoing project (or mission, really) operates on a repeating cycle of roughly eight weeks, with players gradually contributing towards its progression. Once complete, a progression reset will be available. If progress is not complete, players will be able to carry it over to the next finalisation window.
A progression reset will wipe character levels, skills, inventory, crafting capabilities, and everything else associated with progress. Cosmetics (both earned and purchased), awards, achievements and the like will remain.
To incentivise completing the Expedition Project, players will be rewarded with permanent account unlocks, unique cosmetic rewards, and buffs for the following Expedition cycle.
“One point to drive home is that we are being very careful about the nature of these benefits,” the blog post reads. “Completing a reset should never give a player a power or combat advantage over anyone who has not completed a reset.
“Initially, these benefits will centre around cosmetics and bragging rights, quality-of-life, and smoothing out some aspects of progression for those who have gone through a reset.”
Essentially, this system gives players the power to reset their game in their own time, prolonging the game’s longevity through repetition with less pressure on endgame activities.
“It’s not a silver bullet,” the studio admitted, “and won’t achieve the clean break that a mandatory global reset does, but it does aim to be more equitable to all players. Wherever possible, we want to value your time spent in the game as much as you do.
“Of course, this is a complex topic, so we’ll be keeping an eye on the discussion around this message and follow up as necessary.”
ARC Raiders will have a free public network test later this month, to test out the game ahead of its full release on 30th October.
It’s releasing, therefore, between Battlefield 6 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 as something of an underdog of the three. Still, you can’t type “ARC Raiders” into the Call of Duty chat as it’s been censored.
