Arc Raiders boss says he'll "apologize" to Italy's Stella Montis hotel after it's flooded with reviews from players: "I didn't know about that. That's amazing"

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Arc Raiders boss says he'll "apologize" to Italy's Stella Montis hotel after it's flooded with reviews from players: "I didn't know about that. That's amazing" News By Austin Wood published 9 February 2026

Sorry, Stella Montis

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(Image credit: Embark Studios)

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Arc Raiders is set in a near-futuristic Italy, so in a sense it's no grand surprise that a real hotel shares a name with the map Stella Montis, notorious among raiders as a hive for PvP, ratting, and every other form of player skullduggery. After learning that Arc Raiders players had besieged the Stella Montis hotel with reviews parodying their experience with the game, CEO Patrick Söderlund of developer Embark Studios says he'd like to "apologize."

Speaking with IGN, Söderlund said he hadn't actually heard of this hotel review trend: "I'm reading them now. I see. 'I don't recommend this for solo players' [laughs]. I didn't know about that. That's amazing. I feel sorry for the poor hotel, though. I'll probably have to call them and apologize."

Another player's review reads: "The only issue is that players sometimes spawn just ten meters away from me."

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One raider, who is clearly in very different lobbies to mine, wrote: "The people there are very nice, nobody shoots, and occasionally someone even comes by with a flute."

Söderlund said we can thank CCO Stefan Strandberg for much of Arc Raiders' love of Italy. "We also felt like Italy is a good place for a lot of this to happen for multiple reasons," Söderlund explained.

The Stella Montis hotel overlap is a happy accident here, and the review bomb – which has actually been positive, from what I've seen, with joke reviews mostly being four and five-stars – is just another alley in Arc Raiders' social sandbox.

"I will find out because now I'm intrigued - and I probably will call up that hotel and apologize for what we've caused them," Söderlund added. "That wasn't intended, but I'll promise to get back to you with a reply on that!"

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Arc Raiders boss says "that's not the vision for our game" when asked about Fortnite-style skins, prefers the Battlefield 6 route where "everything fits the fiction."

CATEGORIES PS5 Xbox Series X PC Gaming Platforms PlayStation Xbox Austin WoodSocial Links NavigationSenior writer

Austin has been a game journalist for 12 years, having freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree. He's been with GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize his position is a cover for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a lot of news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.

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