Embark Studios, maker of The Finals and Arc Raiders, was formed back in 2018 by former veterans of Battlefield maker DICE. It’s now parted ways with one of those cofounders, CCO Rob Runesson, following allegations of an inappropriate relationship with an esports streamer involved with one of the studio’s games. Embark said the decision was mutual despite an outside investigate being unable to substantiate the allegations after they first spread on social media.
“Our leadership team was recently made aware of allegations against an Embark employee,” the studio told IGN in a statement. “We take these matters seriously, and as a part of our process for addressing any types of allegations, we immediately hired a law firm to conduct an external investigation. The investigation did not substantiate the allegations, but we found the situation unsustainable and mutually agreed to part ways with Rob.”
The allegations of an inappropriate relationship with an esports streamer for The Finals were circulated online via multiple Google docs and discussed across various channels and subreddits, IGN reports. An anonymous person claimed a popular female streamer had concerns about a sexual relationship she had with Runesson but was unable to do something about it because he leveraged his stature to promote her channel. However, the female streamer in question later reached out to IGN to say that some of the allegations circulated were out of context or misleading.
Runesson was an art lead at DICE across several well known games, including Mirror’s Edge, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, and Star Wars: Battlefront. He formed Embark along with several fellow former colleagues including Magnus Nordin, Stefan Strandberg, Jenny Huldschiner, and Patrick Söderlund. Runesson most recently served as chief content officer for the Nexon owned studio whose 2025 extraction shooter hit Arc Raiders has sold over 14 million copies. Runesson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The studio recently addressed other allegations of misconduct within The Finals’ competitive scene between individual players. “For the sake of our community, our players, our partners, and the long term health of our game, we believe it is responsible to temporarily pause our current outbound esports efforts,” Embark posted in The Finals Discord last month. “This season’s competitive model was built with strong intentions, and it is our role to ensure it meets the standards we set.”
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