KRAFTON and PUBG Studios look to deliver a new competitor in the 5v5 shooter landscape, albeit one that sets itself apart from the hero shooters dominating the craze. Developed by PUBG Studios, Project ARC is an upcoming top-down shooter with real-time elements, one with the potential to grab itself a slice of the market.
PlayerUnknown’s BattleGrounds isn’t the heavyweight it once was, though it remains no slouch in its influence. According to Steam Charts, the title still draws in around 500k players per day, without accounting for console players, and that’s to say nothing of the incredible success PUBG Mobile has seen. Nonetheless, the stage is still set for something new—and it’s a chance for PUBG Studios to draw on lessons learned and deliver something entirely different. Game Rant recently spent some time with Project ARC during an online preview event, and it seems to accomplish that, even in an early build. The event saw two teams, one made up of the game’s developers and another formed from members of the press, battle it out over five games, experiencing different maps and game modes.
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Project ARC, The Follow-Up To PUBG, Has A Lot Going For It
Project ARC Already Has Some Essential Beats Down
Through an initial lens, the gameplay of Project ARC is reminiscent of other top-down shooters like Helldivers or Neon Chrome. Despite the movement limitations many such titles impose on themselves, though, Project ARC combines its core highlighted-trajectory mechanic with crouching and jumping motions that take advantage of the 3D space. This allows for more reactivity even with a brisk time-to-kill, ensuring that the game’s short matches retain a tactical edge.
On that subject, this build of Project ARC is not a game that wastes the player’s time. During the event, the plan was to play about three matches, plus a fourth if there was time. This was projected to take about 45 minutes, but it was blasted through in about half an hour. This is an aspect that sets it apart from other 5v5 shooters like Overwatch 2, even if Project ARC isn’t stylistically framed as a competitor. In fact, the aesthetic, perspective, and arcade-adjacent feel of Project ARC reminded me somewhat of Shadow Assault: Tenchu, though Project ARC far exceeds a good but simplistic minigame collection.
Indeed, this early build of Project ARC surprised me with how fully formed it was. The team working on ARC has fewer than 15 developers to its name—and that team has done a fine job getting everything together. Some elements of the UI certainly had a placeholder feel, and a couple of features have yet to be implemented (one developer mentioned that a character with a toxic gas special will, in future development, receive immunity to their own attack), but much of the experience felt ready to ship. Map and character design is polished and distinctive, and the game hosts a decent level of feature depth.
One area where the depth is especially evident is in the map design. Our press team was consistently undone by the developer team, with map knowledge being the big upper hand brought by their experience. Map design is also a major part of ARC‘s ‘Demolition’ mode, one of the game’s two major modes (the other being Team Deathmatch). This mode sees one team try to place and protect a decrypter to hack into a ‘Crypt’ device, all while the other team tries to protect said device. One developer compared the mode to Counter-Strike during the event, and the similarities are certainly evident.
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How Project ARC Can Fit Into An Incredibly Competitive Shooter Landscape
Production director Seungmyeong Yang and development lead Yeongho Kim also highlighted Project ARC‘s goals. When asked about how the game plans to compete in the ‘very competitive’ 5v5 shooter genre, the duo highlighted Project ARC‘s differences to other top-down shooters. As they said, “The game combines fast-paced, realistic shooting mechanics with the strategic layers of the top-down view,” aspects I definitely saw during my time playing.
In addition to a strong concept, new IPs entering the current shooter landscape also need to get their monetization in order. This was something that Concord struggled with, as its mix of asking price and microtransactions made it less accessible when compared to freemium games. When asked about the subject, the pair stated that the team has both “free-to-play and paid options under consideration.” Given that ARC‘s gameplay relies on fast-paced matches, a free-to-play model with consistent updates may be the best course of action—especially as both interviewees mentioned that no campaign or bot play is planned for Project ARC. Since PvP will be the focus, new maps and new character classes will be important for retention.
Overall, Project ARC is bursting with potential. Even in an early build, the title is quite polished—and it has the ingredients key to not only a big player presence but a role in the esports world. PUBG Studios hopes to roll it out in early access in 2025, and it has the meat required to make that deadline.
However, the route Project ARC goes with monetization will be a make-or-break factor, as it has been for many games this year alone. More character classes, more maps, and potentially even more game modes would also be great ways to tie the experience together and take advantage of its excellent bones. It’s hard to predict how close ARC will get to PUBG‘s bones, but its distinction from that game in terms of experimentation and concept is certainly laudable.
PUBG Corporation
- Date Founded
- March 1, 2015
- Headquarters
- Seoul, South Korea
- Known For
- PUBG (PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds)