Embark Studios’ brilliant extraction shooter Arc Raiders has officially won the “Best Multiplayer Game” award at the 2026 annual BAFTA Game Awards.
Coming after the game’s multiplayer win at 2025’s The Game Awards, Embark’s shooter took home the win from the prestigious British award ceremony.
While Arc Raiders only took home one award from the awards proceedings, the game was nominated for a number of other trophies. The game was nominated for Best Game, won by Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Audio Achievement, which went to Dispatch, Technical Achievement, won by Ghost of Yotei, and New IP, which was won by South of Midnight.
Reported by the BBC, Arc Raiders developers Embark Studios claimed that the game represented the “best of humanity”, likely referring to the friendliness of the multiplayer game’s community.
Reported by the BBC, Arc Raiders developers Embark Studios claimed that the game represented the “best of humanity”, likely referring to the friendliness of the multiplayer game’s community.
“We saw the best of humanity in our games,” the studio said. “When we made it we were the worst of humanity! We built a sandbox and our players brought their skills to make it something special.”
The behaviour of the Arc Raiders community has been a massive surprise for everyone, but none more than the developers itself. Originally playtested with a heavy PvP slant, Embark recently revealed that just 30% of its userbase is hyper-focused on PvP.
Other categories at the BAFTAs include the Evolving Game, which was secured by No Man’s Sky. As a brand-new live-service game with huge, bold plans for the future, could Embark’s shooter be eyeing up that award in the future? (Let’s be honest, it’ll take a lot to grab that trophy from the clutches of No Man’s Sky and Warframe!)
As Arc Raiders preps for its upcoming Riven Tides update release time, players are readying for the game’s biggest update yet. While the hype is palpable for the new update, some fans have been upset by a massive overhaul to the game’s Expeditions system, which is seemingly introducing a new layer of FOMO to the game.
With the game’s huge sales already funding years of additional updates, there’s a lot planned for Arc Raiders, despite the internet’s recent doom-and-glooming over player counts.
