Arc Raiders quietly launched in November 2025 to over 260,000 concurrent players and immediate critical acclaim. But one design choice sparked debate among players: the game has no enemy health bars. Most games slap a glowing bar over enemy heads to show damage. Arc Raiders refuses. Embark Studios founder and chief creative officer Stefan Strandberg has strong opinions about why, and he’s not shy about sharing them.
- The Philosophy Behind No Health Bars
- How Arc Raiders Shows Damage Without Numbers
- Why Players Didn’t Notice the Absence
- The Bigger Design Philosophy at Embark
- The Immersion Versus Answers Debate
- What This Means for Future Shooters
- The AI Controversy Surrounding Arc Raiders
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Conclusion
The Philosophy Behind No Health Bars
In an interview with GamesRadar following Arc Raiders’ launch, Strandberg explained his philosophy with real passion. “Every time a big red bar is slung over a character’s head, it may as well be a flashing neon sign that reads ‘YOU ARE IN A GAME’,” he expressed. For Strandberg, health bars are immersion killers. They break the fourth wall. They remind players they’re staring at a UI system instead of experiencing the world.
More damningly, Strandberg described health bars as turning games into “Excel sheets.” The critique isn’t really about the bars themselves. It’s about how developers use them as crutches instead of communicating damage through actual environmental storytelling. When a game relies on numerical displays to convey information, it stops being an experience and starts being a spreadsheet with pictures.
How Arc Raiders Shows Damage Without Numbers
So how does Arc Raiders communicate enemy damage without health bars? Through design intelligence. When you shoot a robot in Arc Raiders, you don’t see a number tick down. Instead, you see visible destruction. The more you shoot something, the more thick black smoke pours from its chassis. Fire flickers through cracked armor plating. Components physically fall apart. The robot moves differently after taking damage. It struggles. It limps. Eventually it dies.
This damage persistence matters gameplay-wise too. You can scout an area and see a partially destroyed robot or AI turret. That tells you another player or AI has recently been in this location. They might still be nearby. They might be dead. Their loot might be here. That visual storytelling creates tactical information without a single UI element.
Why Players Didn’t Notice the Absence
What’s fascinating is that Arc Raiders players didn’t universally complain about missing health bars. In fact, many didn’t notice they were missing until the conversation started online. That’s the mark of exceptional design. When a mechanic is executed well enough, players don’t realize it’s absent. They don’t have the words to describe what they’re experiencing. They just know it feels right.
One player on Reddit mentioned they hadn’t noticed the absence because Arc Raiders nailed the visual feedback so thoroughly. The game’s commitment to showing damage state through environmental cues created a better experience than traditional bars would have. That’s what Strandberg was arguing for: immersion through design rather than convenience through UI.
The Bigger Design Philosophy at Embark
The no-health-bars philosophy fits into Embark Studios’ broader approach to game design. The studio, founded in 2018 by former EA veterans including Patrick Söderlund, specifically rejected the idea of competing with AAA studios through raw budget. Instead, they compete through design innovation and smart systems.
Arc Raiders proves this philosophy works. The game launched alongside Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 and Battlefield 6, two franchises with budgets that dwarf Embark’s. Yet Arc Raiders has become the breakout hit of the season. Players describe it as the first extraction shooter to truly understand the genre since Escape From Tarkov. That success comes from thoughtful design choices like eliminating health bars, not from throwing massive resources at a problem.
The Immersion Versus Answers Debate
Strandberg’s statement that “immersion is better than answers served on a silver platter” gets at something developers rarely admit. Most modern games default toward accessibility and convenience. Health bars are convenient. Quest markers are convenient. Objective waypoints are convenient. These UI elements answer questions immediately instead of making players work for understanding.
But immersion requires uncertainty. It requires reading situations. It requires making decisions with incomplete information. Traditional UI design flattens all this texture in exchange for clarity. Arc Raiders chose texture over clarity, and most players prefer it. That’s an important statement about modern game design preferences.
What This Means for Future Shooters
If Arc Raiders continues its success trajectory, expect other shooters to reconsider health bar implementation. Design trends in gaming move slowly because publishers fear deviation from established conventions. But when a bold design choice results in critical and commercial success, competitors suddenly find the courage to innovate.
Strandberg’s passionate anti-health-bar stance might seem like a small thing. It’s one UI element. But it represents a larger philosophy about trusting players and trusting design. Arc Raiders proves that audiences don’t need everything explained to them. They don’t need every system gamified and quantified. Sometimes the best experience emerges when you remove the UI and let the world speak for itself.
The AI Controversy Surrounding Arc Raiders
It’s worth noting that while Strandberg champions the no-health-bars design, Arc Raiders has faced scrutiny over Embark’s use of AI tools in development. The studio used machine learning to create enemy locomotion systems, resulting in emergent behaviors like robots attempting to rebalance when a leg is shot off. They also used AI text-to-speech technology alongside real voice actors.
Strandberg defended this approach by distinguishing between generative AI (which Embark claims it didn’t use) and AI as a tool within a human-creative context. The enemy movement AI creates fantastic emergent gameplay moments. That’s different from using AI to write the game design or generate art assets. It’s AI in service of developer vision, not replacing it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why doesn’t Arc Raiders have enemy health bars?
Founder Stefan Strandberg believes health bars destroy immersion and turn games into “Excel sheets.” Arc Raiders communicates damage through visual destruction, fire, smoke, and persistent damage states instead.
How do you know how much damage enemies have taken in Arc Raiders?
Visual feedback shows damage progression. Robots leak smoke, show cracked armor, flicker with fire, and eventually fall apart as you shoot them. Persistent damage is visible, allowing you to scout areas and see evidence of recent player activity.
Did players complain about the missing health bars?
No, most players didn’t notice they were missing because the visual feedback system works so well. Many didn’t realize Arc Raiders had no health bars until the design choice was discussed online.
Is Arc Raiders successful despite the no-health-bars design?
Arc Raiders launched to over 260,000 concurrent players and 88% positive reviews on Steam, out-performing previous games even while competing against Black Ops 7 and Battlefield 6.
What studio makes Arc Raiders?
Embark Studios, a Swedish developer founded in 2018 by former EA executives including Patrick Söderlund and Stefan Strandberg. The game is published by Nexon.
Does Arc Raiders use AI in development?
Embark used machine learning for enemy locomotion systems and AI text-to-speech technology alongside real voice acting. The studio claims it did not use generative AI for content creation.
Is Arc Raiders free-to-play?
No, Arc Raiders costs $40 and is a premium extraction shooter. It’s not free-to-play like The Finals, Embark’s previous game.
What is an extraction shooter?
An extraction shooter is a multiplayer game where you drop into an area, collect loot, and must reach extraction zones to escape. If you die before extracting, you lose your loot. Arc Raiders is described as the best extraction shooter since Escape From Tarkov.
How long has Arc Raiders been in development?
Arc Raiders was originally in development longer but was scrapped and restarted. The current version represents a relatively recent development cycle compared to traditional AAA shooters.
Conclusion
Arc Raiders’ design philosophy of eliminating enemy health bars represents a larger statement about game design priorities. Rather than maximizing convenience through UI systems, Strandberg chose to maximize immersion through environmental storytelling and visual feedback. The result is a game that feels fresher than established competitors, proving players don’t need every system gamified and quantified. In a landscape dominated by UI clutter and objective markers, Arc Raiders stands out by trusting both its design and its players. Stefan Strandberg’s passionate conviction that immersion beats answers served on a silver platter isn’t just ideology. It’s backed by 260,000 concurrent players and critical acclaim. Sometimes the best design choice is what you don’t show rather than what you do.