ARC Raiders Hits 1.7 Million Daily Players, a 6-Month High, as the PvE Test Pulls Raiders Back

ARC Raiders just had its busiest stretch in more than six months. According to new estimates from Alinea Analytics, published October 16, Embark's extraction shooter peaked at about 1.7 million daily active players across all platforms on Wednesday, October 14. That was one day after the PvE toggle beta went live, and two days after the Frozen Trail free weekend ended. These are third-party estimates, not official numbers from Embark, but they line up with the Steam spike we saw after Frozen Trail launched.

The numbers, day by day

Here's how Alinea's analyst Rhys Elliott breaks it down:

• Before the update: the game was still drawing roughly 500,000 daily players. TechPowerUp, citing Alinea, puts the day before at about 599,000.
• October 8 (Frozen Trail + free weekend): about 944,000 players jumped in.
• Free weekend (Oct 8–12): daily players climbed to around 1.6 million, and the free period brought in roughly 150,000 new players.
• After the free weekend: instead of dropping, daily players held near 1.6 million and peaked at 1.7 million on October 14. Alinea says that's about 10% of everyone who has bought the game.

On Steam alone, TechPowerUp notes that SteamDB's peak concurrent count rose from 152,547 on October 12 to 164,228 on October 13, the day the PvE test started. Insider Gaming points out that the Frozen Trail launch peak was even higher, at 185,443.

Sales and spending are up too

The free weekend worked as a sales pitch. Alinea estimates that 150,000 new copies sold in the three days after it ended, worth nearly $3 million. The game was 50% off at $19.99, its deepest discount yet, until October 16 on Steam and Xbox (Alinea said it was still active on PS5). The firm also estimates another $2 million this month from cosmetic collector sets on Steam, about three-quarters of it from the new Frozen Trail Collector Set. It puts lifetime revenue at around $710 million.

Is PvE the reason?

It's a big part of the story, though not all of it. Alinea credits the new content and the PvE test for keeping players around. It says its Steam review sentiment analysis shows most players "loving the mode," while calling it "polarising." That matches what we've seen: some players love the chill raids, while others complain about griefers and loot vultures. Insider Gaming's Grant Taylor-Hill collected 1,100+ comments on a video about the toggle and found overwhelming support. He also admits YouTube's algorithm may have skewed the sample toward PvE fans.

What's next

• October 20, 11:00 CEST (5:00 AM ET): the PvE toggle beta ends. Embark plans to send a survey afterward.
• The big decision: Embark says player feedback and in-game data will decide whether the toggle becomes permanent. A 1.7 million daily peak is the kind of data point that will be hard to ignore.
• Patches: Embark is still shipping fixes, most recently Hotfix 2.1.1 against dupes and locked-room exploits.

New to the PvE servers? Read our explainer on how the toggle works before the test window closes.