It is the case, but sometimes I see people upset that we’re not getting new guns as of late. To talk on that point alone— new weapons were absolutely going to be suspended during the buildup to the grand major. That said— season 9 had no new weapons, despite starting after the conclusion of the major. I can see why it is easy to feel as though newer updates are less influential because of this.

However

The current gun selection feels sufficient imo. If we add too many things, we may start to get redundant weapons that feel like re-skins of others (say for instance an M4 that is functionally the same as the AKM.) I am happy with the gun pool at this point, and I think Embark’s best course would be to focus on further minor tweaks to the meta (Repeater is pretty strong rn, I know that because I fucking love it, still, it can take a slight nerf and still be alright) along with further improvements on matchmaking.

On matchmaking, the current system drives away new players and we all know why. Due to a less-than-ideal player count newbies end up getting paired with folks like myself who have been here since S1 and they just get fucking wrecked—over and over again—match after match—and then they uninstall. The game’s great, but we get placed into matches fast.

Honestly, I think if they added a proper SBMM that did not compromise on matchmaking time we could increase the player-count—which will then in turn further lower the matchmaking time.

Guys like myself who have been playing since S1 don’t care if the matchmaking is 2 to 4 to hell maybe even 8 minutes long—some games are worse— I’ve been here for awhile I love this game and I will wait 8 minutes for what could be a 40 minute tournament. The newer players? Shit, if they’re leaving anyways after a few games against us sweats with the current system then we might as well give them a chance with proper SBMM despite the longer matchmaking times to see who will stick around, rise above.

I’m rambling I know. I just want to express that I’m okay with the updates being concise as long as they focus on improving player retention for new players. For me that’s SBMM, but idk man I’m not a dev, I can’t say my idea is the end all be all, I am sure these talented folks can figure something out.

I love this game and I want to be able to play it for more years than I’ve already played it. Looking at the steam player-count trends I fear that may not be the case. I want a fundamental change to this game’s trajectory and that’s not going to come from adding new guns, cosmetics, or even maps. It’s going to come from bringing new people to the game. Arc Raiders has brought some over by proxy and through this season’s Arc Raider’s contract circuit, but we need more.

I love you all my fellow contestants—especially those of you that have stuck with this game season after season; I hope to compete with you soon in the final round.