Arc Raiders is currently putting up huge numbers on Steam for its free Open Beta “server slam,” topping out at 189,668 concurrents so far. It’s gearing up to be a huge hit for Embark, a relatively small studio, even if the final numbers will come down, given that the game is not free-to-play and will cost $40 for the standard edition, and $60 for the deluxe, not unusual in the extraction shooter space.
No doubt those playing the game will wonder when they can actually jump into the real version, and the release date for Arc Raiders is Thursday, October 30 for a pre-Halloween launch.
The Open Beta continues this weekend, but it will end in less than a day. The official regional end times for the beta are mostly on Sunday, October 19, and they are early in the day, unfortunately, so you will want to play hard all day today:
- West Coast US: 8 am PDT
- East Coast US: 11 am EDT
- UK: 4 pm BST
- Europe: 5 pm CEST
- Australia: 2 am AEDT (on October 20)
- New Zealand: 3 am NZST (on October 20)
I have been covering Arc Raiders for a while now, since its impressive public tests began, specifically in relation to rival extraction shooter, Sony/Bungie’s Marathon, where that game’s alpha test had its parade rained on by an early, much-lauded Arc Raiders test. Marathon, meanwhile, did not come across well.
The two were supposed to be competing this fall, with Marathon out September 23 and Arc out October 30. However, Marathon was delayed indefinitely and has gone dark with a large number of closed playtests. Sony has said that Marathon will probably be out in Q4 of the fiscal year, ie, before March 31, 2026, but that’s not a guarantee. A problem now is that Arc Raiders is going to have a well-established playerbase by then, and Marathon pulling players off a fellow, well-liked $40 extraction shooter is going to be a tall order. Again, this is rather stunning given that Arc Raiders is made by the comparatively smaller Embark while Marathon is made by Bungie, shooter royalty between twenty years of Halo and Destiny.
My feeds are full of clips of Arc Raiders shenanigans, as the game has the potential for some very funny situations with its grounded combat paired with large, leaping robots and other fun scenarios. With these numbers, it’s clear that Arc Raiders is well on its way to a great launch in two weeks, and we’ll see the final figures then. But before that, get in there now for the next 24 hours, and you do not need a code to do so.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
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