Arc Raiders Becomes One of Steam’s Biggest Extraction Shooter Launches

Arc Raiders has made a huge splash on Steam, crossing over 264,000 concurrent players within just a day of launch, making it one of the biggest extraction shooter debuts on the platform.

Arc Raiders on Steam | Embark Studios

On its very first day, Embark Studios’ new PvP extraction shooter pulled in more than 130,000 players during its opening hour, and by the end of the day, it had peaked at 264,673 concurrent users. That’s not just impressive for a new IP, it’s record‑setting for the genre on Steam. To put it into perspective, Arc Raiders has already outperformed the Steam launches of titles like:

• Delta Force - 247,028 (Sep 26, 2025)

• Arena Breakout: Infinite - 66,007 (Sep 28, 2025)

• Gray Zone Warfare - 72,548 (May 5, 2024)

• Hunt: Showdown 1896 - 60,000 (Aug 2024)

• Dark and Darker - 57,164 (Jun 23, 2024)

Of course, these numbers only reflect Steam. The game also launched on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, but since Sony and Microsoft don’t share player counts, the total number of people playing Arc Raiders is likely much higher. And considering the launch happened mid‑week, we can expect the numbers to climb further as more players log in over the weekend.

What’s interesting is how Arc Raiders has managed to stand tall even against free‑to‑play heavyweights. More people played Arc Raiders in the last 24 hours than Apex Legends or Marvel Rivals. That’s no small feat, especially since Arc Raiders is a premium title. The game currently holds a “very positive” rating on Steam, with over 15,000 reviews already posted.

Arc Raiders arrived right between Battlefield 6 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, two of the biggest shooters of the year. But Embark’s leadership seems unfazed. CEO Patrick Söderlund told The Game Business, “People may look at that [release date] and say, ‘What the hell are they doing?’ We have spent a lot of time looking at this from multiple angles and, for right or wrong, we believe that the game can launch there. This is the start of a long journey. It needs to start somewhere.”

Arc Raiders will soon face its toughest test yet when Escape from Tarkov, arguably the most popular extraction shooter, finally arrives on Steam on November 15. Bungie’s Marathon is also looming on the horizon, and Embark’s design director has even called the overlap with Bungie’s playtest “a great A/B test for us.”