ARC Raiders has sold 2.5M copies

I haven’t attended an event this year without someone asking about ARC Raiders. That usually means a game is going to have a big launch.

ARC Raiders was no different.

Since launching for $40 on October 30, it’s sold 2.5M copies, grossing revenues of $100M+ in its first week. ARC did this despite launching two days after Battlefield’s free-to-play REDSEC mode and two weeks before Black Ops 7.

Most ARC Raiders players are on Steam (around 1.7 million or 69.2%), followed by PlayStation (400K+ or 17.3%) and Xbox (300K+ or 13.5%).

It’s clear that extraction shooters – even paid ones (gasp) – can attract millions of players at launch. Embark’s more user-friendly approach to the genre, and the smart decision to launch as a paid game, is paying off. More on that later.

If you’re not familiar, extraction shooters are a subgenre of shooters that combine player-vs-player (PvP) and player-vs-environment (PvE) elements. Extraction shooters see players:

• Entering a map, solo or with other players.

• Gathering loot and completing objectives (solo or helping others).

• Successfully reach an extraction point to escape and keep their rewards – or not.

• Play in a loop of risk: Dying before extracting means the player losing everything they brought into the match, including gear and loot from previous runs.

• Getting betrayed: Other player-controlled characters can attack other players and steal their loot (even after teaming up initially).

The genre is a thrill ride, but it’s tense as hell. While extraction shooters in their current form will never become a mass-market genre like battle royale (and never had much chance of doing so), there’s clearly something here.

And the subgenre can be iterated on to be more mass market (AKA fun). ARC Raiders is a taste of this, with clever design that solves one of the genre’s biggest pain points.

The Dark Zone in Ubisoft’s The Division was arguably the first ‘’extraction shooter’’ mode, but Escape from Tarkov put the genre on the map and spawned countless pundits claiming that the genre ‘’will become the next battle royale.’’

I’ll say now what I said then: Chill out.

Over the past few years, the number of extraction shooter launches on Steam has grown. This year, 48 games tagged with ‘’extraction shooter’’ have been added to Steam so far, already up 12% from 2024’s 43 games.

However, the genre is not primed for mass-market appeal. Extraction shooters have always attracted a core group of players who thrive on tension, consequence, and emergent storytelling. But the steep learning curve has limited wider appeal.

As for why so many people heralded extraction shooters as the second coming of Fortnite, I reckon it’s because they conflated extraction shooters with the untapped potential of PvE and co-op games. I’ve been banging on about this for a while.

Tone plays a vital role, too. Most extraction shooters shoulder players into paranoia when crossing paths with other players. ARC Raiders encourages cooperation as much as rivalry – most of the time, anyway.

Proximity chat, dangerous ARC machines, and shared environmental hazards frequently push strangers to work together. This probably sounds familiar.

We already dived into the success of co-op over the summer, but here are some new estimates showing that co-op games on Steam have now generated gross revenues of over $7 billion:

Our crossover estimates show that about half of ARC Raiders players on Steam have also played Phasmophobia, Lethal Company, and Helldivers 2, respectively. And over 40% have played R.E.P.O., Valheim, PEAK, and Dead by Daylight.

All this is to say that I reckon ARC Raiders has found success for focusing on co-op, community, a solid FTUE, and PvE, rather than succeeding for the same reasons as Tarkov.

The game’s progression and tone also make ARC Raiders WAY less toxic than other games in the genre. Losing gear doesn’t feel like a total reset, so frustration doesn’t turn into hostility toward others (usually…).

Early missions put players in situations where helping one another feels natural. It introduces danger gradually, fostering confidence and encouraging communication before that sweaty high-level play kicks in.

Theoretically, this gives the community time to form cooperative norms before the inevitable meta-driven ruthlessness sets in. It also stops that early friction and churn. It’s still early days, but ARC Raiders’ player retention so far has been great.

ARC Raiders still has plenty of tension, though. Betrayals still happen, and PvP still has the odd adrenaline spike when intentions shift. That contrast actually helps make those friendly moments memorable and infectious; it feels both viable and rewarding.

All this helps ARC Raiders’ first-time user experience (FTUE) stand out, especially for this genre. It’s been rad. My first hours with ARC have certainly been more forgiving than those gruelling first few hours of Tarkov.

So far, I’ve found that ARC Raiders has been a social ecosystem that produces uplifting stories rather than only tales of betrayal. The developers set the world up with a goal of ‘‘rebuilding humanity,’’ encouraging players to act with hope rather than suspicion

Those emergent moments are easily shared and have helped ARC Raiders’ viral traction across TikTok, Twitch, and YouTube. Players are actually working together, creating memorable, cinematic encounters that market the experience for the studio without needing scripted set pieces.

Content creators and early adopters have helped reinforce this positivity. Viral clips of players rescuing strangers or forming temporary alliances have set the tone. Embark has actively spotlighted this in its marketing, too:

This more positive (relatively speaking) experience was no accident. In a recent interview with Chris Dring, which is well worth watching, Embark CEO Patrick Soderlund explained that the team wanted to build a world where humanity is trying to rebuild, not collapse.

The Embark team saw an opportunity to make the extraction genre easier to onboard without losing its identity. Clearer tutorialisation, forgiving early missions, readable UI, and consistent visual communication were priorities.

According to Soderlund, the traditional extraction model was too quick to punish curiosity. I’d agree.

Seasonal content until the end of the year will introduce a new map, new threats, new raid zones, and new enemies that can reshape community strategies.

That kind of support is crucial for retention and signals to players that their investment will continue to grow.

There are still challenges, though. Extraction shooters, even more player-friendly ones like ARC Raiders, become hostile to newcomers once a hardcore meta solidifies. We’ve seen it before, and might see it again here.

Live-service promises are easy to make (and easy to break…), but they’re always difficult to execute without burnout or content dips.

But this isn’t Embark’s first rodeo, and they’ve been talking about their smooth approach to efficiency at events and in the press.

Embark’s previous game, free-to-play shooter The Finals, has found a strong rhythm after launching to huge player numbers, then seeing a rapid decline:

Embark definitely has what it takes to keep a daily community of 100K+ gamers happy. The team seems to have nailed its live-ops cadence

Embark has applied the learnings from The Finals to build scalable server tech, robust net code, and a content pipeline that supports rapid iteration.

“I do believe that what we have created a way to build games, and update games, that I don’t think many others can compete with,” Embark CEO Patrick Soderlund boldly told The Game Business last week.

Let’s see where this goes. ARC is about to face some stiff competition from Black Ops 7 and the Steam version of Tarkov (coming next week!), and continuous updates to other shooters.

We’ll be comparing all the year’s biggest shooters when these games are all on the market, so hit subscribe below to get that in your inbox first.

Of course, the upfront $40 for ARC means that many players have already sunk time into the game, making it stickier psychologically (the sunk-cost fallacy, the endowment effect, and all that). My psychology degree and master’s were worth it, right? Right!?

Meanwhile, free-to-play games – like Embark’s previous The Finals – have a low barrier to entry but also a low barrier to exit. Speaking of which…

According to our estimates, ARC Raiders has already generated more revenue on Steam than The Finals.

The takeaway here is another thing I’ve been banging on about for a while: Not every multiplayer game needs to be free to play. Just a select few teams have the experience and money to develop a live-ops content treadmill that free-to-play gamers expect.

While Embark might be one of those studios, why risk it and lose out on those all-important initial revenues? It’s a lesson Embark no doubt learned from The Finals post-launch drop-off, as well as seeing the success of Helldivers 2.

Speaking of Helldivers 2, our estimates show it’s VERY near 20 million copies sold, with 12.7M copies sold on Steam (65% of the audience), 5.4M on PS5, and 1.4M on Xbox:

Embark announced that ARC Raiders would shift from a free-to-play model to a premium paid one in August 2024, eight months after the launch of The Finals and six months after Helldivers 2.

Not every team is as well-funded and -staffed as the Fortnite, Call of Duty, or Battlefield teams. Many pundits – especially from the absolutely-positively-not-predatory mobile ecosystem – often default to ‘’Why wasn’t this free-to-play!?’’

Launching free-to-play isn’t a magic bullet. It can be the death knell of games like this one, even good ones. Not every game needs to be propped by a few whales to succeed.

Still, Embark will need to continue delivering on the pacing and variety that helped ARC Raiders break out in the first place – and the liveops cadence from The Finals that has brought many learnings for the team.

The foundation is strong. The blend of accessible design, emotional identity, and high-stakes gameplay has proven that the extraction genre can resonate with audiences beyond its core.

ARC Raiders arrived at the right moment, and you love to see it.

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