ARC Raiders Steam Player Count Drops Over 90% Following Record 465,000 Launch Peak

Embark Studios’ cooperative extraction shooter ARC Raiders is facing a prolonged audience decline on PC. According to data from analytics service SteamCharts, the game’s daily peak player count has dropped to 30,000–32,000 players, down from an all-time record of 465,097 concurrent users at launch in late 2025.

The shooter’s average monthly audience has declined steadily: while an average of 241,000 people played simultaneously in January, that figure fell nearly tenfold to 24.9 thousand by August.

Amid waning interest, recent user reviews on ARC Raiders’ Steam page have dropped to “Mixed” (roughly 50% positive reviews over the last 30 days), though the title’s overall rating holds at 82%.

Switch to Six-Month Cycle and the Major Frozen Trail Add-on

The drop in activity coincided with a shift in content support strategy. In May, the developers abandoned monthly major updates in favor of two large seasonal updates per year alongside intermediate balance patches.

The studio is banking on the upcoming Frozen Trail update, set for release on October 8, to bring players back:

• Largest location: The game will add a snow-covered map that will be the project’s largest territory;
• New threats: An expanded bestiary of ARC robots and high-level activities for experienced squads;
• Systemic changes: A rework of character progression, introduction of an outpost system (Outpost), skill tree modernization, and a new arsenal of weapons and gadgets.

Expeditions System Frozen Until 2027

At the same time, Embark Studios decided to pause its voluntary wipe mechanic, Expeditions. As reported by PC Gamer, the system faced criticism over inefficient reward distribution and a high barrier to entry for newcomers.

The upcoming 5th Expedition (September 8–29) will be the last before an extended break, allowing players for the first time to retain story quest progress following a reset. The next iteration of the mechanic will not arrive until early 2027 after a complete redesign.

When evaluating these metrics, it is important to note that the statistics reflect activity only on Valve’s platform. The game is also available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S consoles, the Epic Games Store, and the GeForce NOW cloud gaming service, though the developers traditionally do not disclose combined player figures across these platforms.