Episode
Arc Raiders Design Director Virgil Watkins
- Podcast
- Game Maker's Notebook
- Published
- Mar 30, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 4660
- Processing state
not_requested
Actions
POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/game-maker-s-notebook-410178/episodes/arc-raiders-design-director-virgil-watkins/transcription-requests
Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/game-maker-s-notebook-410178/arc-raiders-design-director-virgil-watkins.md
Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.
Summary
Adam Orth chats with Virgil Watkins , the design director behind Embark Studios' smash hit extraction shooter, Arc Raiders . Together they discuss his early passion in modding and how it led to him joining Embark Studios as a Technical Designer on the initial PVE version of Arc Raiders ; how internal testing shaped the system design and core experience of the PvPvE version; the ways they're seeking to improve the game post-launch; and how they balance handcrafted experiences with randomness in the deadly Arc encounters. This episode is sponsored by: Xsolla iam8bit Accelbyte Episode Host: Adam Orth Producers: Claudio Tapia and Josh Chu, The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing and leaving us a rating and review . Support the show and get all of our episodes early/ad-free: https://bit.ly/4kU34Lt Follow us: linktr.ee/AIAS Please consider supporting game dev students with: AIAS Foundation