Arc Raiders, the new extraction shooter from The Finals developer Embark Studios, might have shocked everyone when it was announced as a paid multiplayer title instead of a free-to-play game, but that move has worked out very well for the Swedish game development studio.
While the game has been criticised for a lack of duos and some pretty hefty desync issues, the extraction shooter has proven wildly popular, and that’s resulted in a tonne of sales during the game’s launch period.
According to Alinea Analytics, a market analysis firm that tracks new game releases, Arc Raiders has managed to sell over 2.5 million copies since its launch. Via analyst Rhys Elliot, who previously reported the sales of Battlefield 6, the extraction shooter has already surpasses $100 million in revenue.
Interestingly, although it may come as no surprise, the majority of Arc Raiders’ playerbase is on Steam. Alinea Analytics reports that 69.2% of the game’s players are on Steam with no additional information for PC players jumping in via the Epic Game Store.
In terms of console audiences, there is not a significant gulf in player count between PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series machines, despite the rather large difference in popularity between the two consoles. At the time of writing, Arc Raiders’ PS5 player base makes up 17.3% of the population with 13.5% on Xbox Series.
Alinea Analytics also reports that players who bought Arc Raiders are already deeply into popular multiplayer games. Elliot explained that the game’s playerbase is largely populated by gamers with experience in games like Helldivers 2 and Lethal Company, which makes a lot of sense for a game as social as Arc Raiders.
Of course, this is just the start of Embark’s plans for the new extraction shooter with a roadmap already released to detail how it will improve in the coming months. Later this month, the studio is releasing the game’s fifth map—Stella Montis—and new Arc machines, quests, weapons and more are planned to populate the rest of 2025.
As someone who’s only played around 25 hours of the game since release, Arc Raiders is strong, even if it makes me rage like crazy when I get sniped a minute into exploring Blue Gate. There’s a strong allure here unlike anything else, and it’s nice to see that succeed.
