Things are going well for Arc Raiders, a cooperative shooter from Embark Studios. Analytics from Alinea Analytics shows that the game has almost reached the milestone of 7 million copies sold on all platforms. There are already more than 4 million sales on Steam, and the game is at the top of the weekly charts.
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Leadership in Games
A number of reputable releases were released towards the end of 2025 — including Battlefield 6 — this extraction shooter once again topped the list of the best-selling games of the week on Steam. The top 5 sales included indie projects and cooperative hits: PEAK, RV There Yet?, Risk of Rain 2 and Dispatch.
According to Alinea estimates, in the first weeks after the launch, the shooter showed a steady influx of players. Analysts estimate revenue on Steam at about $130 million. The report also captures high DAU metrics: the daily audience reached 1.6 million users over the past weekend. The project is available on PC (Steam), Xbox Series X|S and PS5.
On November 13, the developers released a major content update North Line in ARC Raiders, which upset some players due to changes in the balance of weapons and new confrontation mechanics.
PEAK and other hits of the week
Other notable games mentioned in the latest Alinea Analytics report include PEAK, which has a circulation approaching 15 million copies, making it one of the best—selling indie games of the year. RV There Yet? AdHoc Studio’s Dispatch was also among the top sellers on the digital platform last week, as indie projects continue to show strong performance this year.
High marks from critics
Kai Tatsumoto of Wccftech gave the project a 9/10 rating and praised its sound design, gameplay, map design and squad tactics mechanics. “Overall, this third person shooter is a phenomenal debut in the burgeoning loot and scoot or extraction shooter genre, to put it more technically. Given the early stages of gunplay, which suffers from weak first-level weapons, the mechanics are revealed as soon as you begin to develop squad tactics and master all the subtleties of countering deadly ARC threats throughout Toledo. All players have been waiting with great enthusiasm for the content update from Embark Studios before making a final opinion, and the appearance of Stella Montis has brought a new touch of psychological warfare, taking this escape shooter to a new level.”
Why ARC Raiders blew up sales: An Analysis of success Factors
The commercial triumph of this extraction shooter from Nexon publisher is not an accident, but the result of a well—thought-out strategy. According to an interview with Embark Studios CEO Patrick Söderlund at the publisher’s conference, the team learned from the previous project, The Finals, which scored 20 million downloads at launch, but could not retain players due to a lack of content.
The main success factors include the transformation of the hardcore genre into a mainstream product. The developers took the mechanics of complex extraction shooters like Escape from Tarkov and made it accessible to a wide audience. The $40 price strategy (half the price of AAA shooters) proved crucial for market adoption — analysts estimate that about 69% of total sales are on Steam (1.7 million units), PlayStation showed 400,000, Xbox – 300,000 copies.
Nexon reported record retention rates, “among the highest a publisher has ever seen.” The paid model, instead of free-to-play, has created a psychological commitment effect: players who have paid for the product tend to continue playing. The community really trusts the game because of its fair cosmetic battle pass (no pay-to-win!), refunds if cheaters cause you to lose stuff, and the lack of ridiculous skins.
Nexon’s marketing pushes the teamwork aspect, which sets it apart from other games with toxic communities. Features like proximity chat, risky ARC machines, and shared dangers in the world make people want to team up, even with strangers. Crossover analysis shows that about 50% of Steam players also played Phasmophobia, Lethal Company, and Helldivers 2, cooperative hits that earned over $7 billion on Steam.
The studio has promised frequent updates to the North Line with new weapons, enemies, maps and quests. Nexon CFO Shiro Uemura predicts that cumulative sales in Q4 will reach 5-5.5 million units. Experts note a 30-45% week-over-week increase in DAU metrics, which is rare for extraction shooters.
However, AI controversies have cast a shadow over the achievements. The use of text-to-speech for voicing NPCs has attracted criticism — Eurogamer lowered the score to 2/5, calling the generated voices “aggressively mediocre.” Nexon CEO Junghun Lee replied that “every game company uses AI now,” but the players and the SAG-AFTRA union continue to insist on human creativity. Ironically, a game about people fighting machines uses machines to replace voice actors, a contradiction that has not gone unnoticed.
