Arc Raiders is being released right between Battlefield 6 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 7. However, the Steam figures do not yet reflect this difficult situation.
Arc Raiders features a chicken wearing an astronaut helmet, which in our eyes makes it officially the best game ever. But admittedly, that’s not the main reason why Embark’s new extraction shooter is already going through the roof on Steam just one hour after its release. More than 150,000 players are now active on Arc Raiders’ Steam servers at lunchtime.
These figures are anything but obvious when you consider the game’s release situation. For one thing, Arc Raiders is being released less than three days after the launch of Battlefield 6: Redsec, the free Battle Royale mode for Battlefield 6.
And in two weeks, Black Ops 7, the second major blockbuster shooter of 2025, will be released. Arc Raiders is not only being released between these two huge top dogs, but also demands a hefty $40 entry fee. In the world of free shooters, this is a pretty bold decision on the part of the developers;
we all remember what happened to Sony with Concord, which also charged people €40.
Looking at the initial figures, Arc Raiders seems to be destined for a more glorious fate. This is also underlined by the first Steam reviews.
First Steam reviews of Arc Raiders paint a positive picture
Of the approximately 1,000 Steam reviews, 80.55 percent are currently positive. Overall, people particularly praise three aspects of the game:
- Technical condition: Arc Raiders runs incredibly smoothly. The servers took a few minutes to get going at launch, but the actual game is in exemplary condition. Butter-smooth frame rates even with mid-range hardware, hardly any crashes, a decent release scope, and so on. We’ve seen much worse from significantly larger studios.
- The gameplay loop: Simply put, Arc Raiders is just fun. The shooting feels right, the balance between AI robots and real opponents provides a lot of tactical depth, and at the same time, the whole crafting and co. aspect is tidy enough not to overwhelm people unduly.
- The setting and maps: People praise the creative post-apocalyptic Italy scenario with its retrofuturistic designs and fascinating maps full of ruins, wrecks, and installations. It’s a lot of fun to explore the worlds of Arc Raiders.
To pick out one representative voice, Steam user EscapeDE writes:
What can I say about the game?
PURE LOVE!
It runs smoothly, has incredible graphics, and a gripping atmosphere.
Everything is perfect at first glance!
Anyone who likes this kind of gaming experience will not want to leave.
This is how games should be released in 2025.
Thank you, Embark Studios! <3
But the truth is, this is just a snapshot right after launch. The reviews are based on the first few hours of live play, including beta impressions.
Even the Steam figures – as impressive as they may be – have not yet reached the peak levels of The Finals (also from Embark), which at the time attracted 240,000 people to the servers at the same time and is now hovering somewhere below 10,000. Still a solid level, but far from a multiplayer sensation. So exactly how things will proceed with Arc Raiders is definitely not set in stone yet. We are also currently on the servers with several people, trying to bring home as much stuff as possible to give you a first impression of the game as quickly as possible. So if you encounter us out there, please don’t shoot, okay?
