The joint action game ARC Raiders from Embark Studios has reached the level of 481966 players online on Steam. 149,269 are playing on November 18, 2025, and as many as 377,439 players have visited the game in the last 24 hours. And for the third week in a row, the game is only gaining popularity, entering the top 5 most active games on the platform.
The shooter was released on October 30, 2025, and the dynamics are impressive. As of November 9, the peak was 416.5 thousand users. By November 17, the figure had risen to almost 482,000. Judging by SteamDB, the game is now at the top, right after Dota 2 and Counter-Strike 2. The funny thing is that ARC Raiders beat Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 in terms of the number of players per day. CoD had 491,670, and Raiders had 481,966. But the trick is that the new product from Embark is growing online, while CoD is falling after the hype.
The project has achieved greater popularity than even Fallout 4 (472,962 players) and Life is Strange 2 (468,717). Almost caught up with Terraria (489,886) and Capcom Arcade Stadium (488,791). Escape from Tarkov is actually somewhere out there, far behind, with only 48,000 players. It can be seen that sci-fi extraction shooter has gone off with a bang.
The developers said that on the weekend of November 8-9, 700,000 people played simultaneously on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. In the first 10 days, they sold more than 4 million copies worldwide. Steam players also rated the game – 87% of positive reviews out of 107,000. They seemed to welcome her warmly.
ARC Raiders is available on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. After the release, the studio continues to actively support the project with patches and major updates. On November 13, North Line was released, a massive content update that added a new Stella Montis location with unique rewards, fresh opponents, and item balance adjustments. However, fans reacted ambiguously: some players were upset by the increase in leveling time and changes in the progression system.
Table of Contents
What is ARC Raiders: an overview of gameplay and key features
Who missed the chance to watch the release: ARC Raiders is a PvPvE shooter with crafting elements and procedural location generation. You land on a hostile planet, where you need to extract resources, fight AI opponents (and other players), and then successfully evacuate with loot. Does that sound familiar? Yes, the concept resembles Escape from Tarkov, but it adds a sci-fi wrapper and a greater emphasis on co-op.
The basis of the gameplay is raids. You assemble a team of up to four people or go solo, choose a landing point on the map and go on a mission. The tasks range from the banal “collect N resource units” to “hack an enemy base” or “destroy a particularly dangerous boss”. The opponents here are not just cannon fodder. AI is able to flank, call for reinforcements and use the environment. If you don’t pay attention, even an experienced player can quickly end up in intensive care.
The crafting system is tied to the resources that you get in the raids. Every exit is a risk: if you die, you will lose your equipment. If you survive, you’ll improve your arsenal. The economy is built on the fact that you are constantly balancing between greed (“another box to search”) and prudence (“it’s time to get out while you’re alive”). It is this moment of “exit” that creates the very adrenaline that the extraction genre is loved for.
Procedural map generation means that each raid is unpredictable. The locations of Nueva with new rewards and Stella Montis from the North Line update vary from session to session: the location of enemies, loot and points of interest varies. This kills the routine — you can’t memorize the optimal route and farm it until you’re blue in the face.
At the moment, the game is receiving mixed reviews on Metacritic due to the anti-record of user ratings: part of the community is unhappy with the long pumping and item balance after the last patch. But the numbers speak for themselves: when a shooter gathers 481,966 users on one platform, it means he’s doing something right.
Comparing ARC Raiders with Fallout 4 and Call of Duty: Strengths and Weaknesses
The new ARC Raiders shooter, created by The Finals developers, is rapidly gaining popularity: on Steam, its peak online reached 481,966 users. This figure allowed the game to surpass such giants as Life is Strange 2 and Fallout 4, and approach Terraria and Call of Duty in terms of the total number of simultaneous players.
Curiously, ARC Raiders was even ahead of the last part of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 in terms of daily online availability. Over the past 24 hours, the novelty has taken the 4th place in terms of the number of active players, second only to PUBG: Battlegrounds, Dota 2 and CS2. Recall that up to 700,000 people played ARC Raiders on all platforms at the same time.
Why is ARC Raiders bypassing Fallout 4? Firstly, it is new in comparison with other outdated brands. Fallout 4 was released in 2015, and even the mod community can’t hold interest indefinitely. ARC Raiders offers up-to-date graphics, modern multiplayer mechanics and a lively community. Fallout is a solo adventure with pauses; Raiders is an intense 20-minute session with friends where every second counts.
Secondly, the target audience is different. Fallout attracts fans of storytelling, exploration, and character creation. ARC Raiders is aimed at those who want fast PvPvE battles without hours-long quest chains. You don’t build settlements or choose dialogue branches — you rush in, grab loot and leave. These are different genres, but online figures show that the demand for multiplayer extraction shooters is higher now.
What about Call of Duty? The situation is more interesting here. Black Ops 7 has set an anti-record for user ratings on Metacritic, and fans of the series are unhappy with monetization through the battle pass, weapon balance, and technical problems on release. ARC Raiders, on the contrary, came to the players thanks to an honest model (bought once — play as much as you want) and the absence of pay-to-win elements.
According to the mechanics, COD remains the king of fast arcade shooting: I go in, I shoot, I go out. Matches last 10-15 minutes, and you always know what to expect. ARC Raiders requires more engagement: you need to plan equipment, coordinate with the team, and take risks. This is not a casual relaxation game after work – it’s a stress test of your nerves. And judging by the growth of online, players are hungry for just such an experience.
The graphics of both games are excellent, but ARC Raiders wins in the atmosphere of sci-fi post-apocalypse. Where COD relies on recognizable locations and a historical/modern setting, Raiders creates a sense of an unexplored hostile world. Every location is a mystery, every enemy is a potential threat.
Weaknesses of ARC Raiders: long leveling (it got even worse after the North Line), random procedural generation sometimes creates unbalanced situations, and the learning curve is steep. Beginners will die constantly during the first hours. Plus, the game requires a team — you can go solo, but the chances of success are falling.
Weaknesses of Fallout 4 in the context: outdated graphics, bugs (even after 10 years), lack of new content from developers. COD Black Ops 7: aggressive monetization, problems with cheaters, the feeling of “the same, but with different cards.”
As a result, ARC Raiders occupies its niche between hardcore Escape from Tarkov and casual Call of Duty. If Tarkov is a survival simulator with realistic ballistics and severe punishment for mistakes, and COD is an arcade lighthearted shooter, then Raiders is in the middle: challenging enough to be interesting, but accessible enough not to scare off a wide audience. And the online 150 thousand speaks to the legend of the launch, which proves that the Embark Studios studio has hit the nail on the head.
