Arc Raiders may finally change the late spawn mechanic, but in the meantime, its design lead tells players that late joiners 'economically profit way more'

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: late spawns suck for everyone in Arc Raiders, not just those who come into matches with just 11 minutes on the clock. Now, after months of player complaints and debates around this contentious feature, the devs have finally addressed the topic.

"[Late spawns] is also another topic we've been discussing a lot," Embark Studios design lead Virgil Watkins says in an interview with GamesRadar. "It's another one of those interesting things of data versus perception. We 100% acknowledge the whole thing of, 'Man, I came in to do that trial and now I clearly don't have enough time to do that, and that sucks, so I'm just going to leave,' or whatever. That aspect is definitely not great."

"But similar to the perception of free kits versus what they do, the perception around late joining and what it affords you has been quite interesting. Players are like, 'The loot's all gone,' or whatever else. But players who join late economically profit way more than people who don't. The session, when they are fresh, does eventually get quieter, and very often they come across the remnants of fights or can maybe take out bigger drones or hit high-ticket areas more readily than other players. So that's been a very interesting thing to look at."

I'm not sure I've ever benefited economically from joining a raid late. Sure, I've stumbled across a dead Leaper before and stripped whatever meat was left on the bones, but that tends not to be a whole lot—Arc Raiders players truly leave nothing to waste. Have you ever seen them strip a Matriarch? I have. They're like locusts, swarming around the carcass, stripping it of any value in seconds. It's a very impressive sight to behold.

But I do understand the concept of there technically being enough loot in a match for everyone to take at least something back with them. But cloth and plastic parts don't go as hard as Bastion Cells or Queen Reactors.

On the other hand, I get why late spawning is implemented. Watkins even points out that the "original intent with the late join system" was to ensure maps had multiple players in them until the very end. The theory being that if everyone spawned in at the beginning, most players would leave after 10 minutes or so. Leaving the few remaining players "running around by themselves, effectively", which would be quite lonesome.

But that doesn't negate the fact that late spawns, on the whole, just kind of suck. If you spawn in late, chances are you're left with loot scraps and don't have enough time to complete objectives. And if you encounter someone who's spawned in late after getting into a couple of PvP fights, you'll be at a disadvantage as you're going up against someone with a fresh kit.

But in the meantime, all we can really do is 'git gud' and work with what time we're given. "Okay, well, my plan A isn't possible, I'm gonna do my plan B or C now instead," Watkins says. "The amount of loot we spawn, where it's spawned, where the spawn points are—it's all set up in a way that there should be plenty of stuff for players to do."

"With things like trials, where that is the only objective, then fine, that's kind of off the table, and that really sucks, because that was the time you had set aside for it. I think trying to do more on that side of things is where I want to look next. Coming in with a dedicated purpose, and that's been undercut by the late join, is where I'd want to remove the pain point first."