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  1. Games
  2. Third Person Shooters
  3. Arc Raiders

Arc Raiders has been Steam's top-selling premium game every week since its launch, so it's no wonder its player count has barely dwindled

News
By Scott McCrae published 2 January 2026

Only beaten in revenue by the Steam Deck and Counter-Strike 2

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Arc Raiders
(Image credit: Embark)
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Not only was Arc Raiders the best-selling Steam game of the holidays, but it's been the Steam best-seller every single week since it launched back in October.

I don't need to tell you how successful Arc Raiders has been. Despite some controversy about its AI usage, players have been enamored with the shooter, with it overshadowing the likes of Battlefield 6 – which has massive hype as a return to form for the series – and Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, which is largely considered pretty bad, but it's still Call of Duty. Outside of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, it's hard to think of a game with a bigger impact on 2025, and it's got the numbers to back that up.

As reported by Eurogamer, SteamDB data shows that Arc Raiders was the best-selling game of the 2025 holiday season, with only Counter-Strike 2 appearing above it in the charts (which are based on revenue instead of sales, so it probably had about one knife sale). However, it actually goes deeper than that.

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Looking back on SteamDB from this past week until the week of October 28 to November 4, 2025, Arc Raiders has been at the top of the charts every single week when it comes to paid games. The only week it was behind another non-free-to-play item was Black Friday week, when the Steam Deck took the top spot, and Counter-Strike 2 is the only game – free or paid – to overtake it.

Looking at the SteamDB charts the PC player count reflects this, too. It's lowest player count day was 263,615 on December 11, 2025, which are numbers most games could only dream of. New Year's Day saw a player count of 428,579 which is really not that far from it's all-time peak of 481,966 back on November 16, 2025.

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  • Arc Raiders raider in skull cap Arc Raiders gives players what they asked for as "quieter period" leaves some bored

Outside of the aforementioned AI use, players seem really happy with Arc Raiders, so I wouldn't be shocked to see this reign continue for a while yet. Given that Resident Evil Requiem is probably the first major release of 2026 with a chance of taking the top spot, we could be watching Arc Raiders on top for another month and change yet.

Arc Raiders players are losing firefights due to unhelpful glitch that prevents them from taking out their weapon.

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Scott McCrae
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Scott has been freelancing for over four years across a number of different gaming publications, first appearing on GamesRadar+ in 2024. He has also written for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, VG247, Play, TechRadar, and others. He's typically rambling about Metal Gear Solid, God Hand, or any other PS2-era titles that rarely (if ever) get sequels.

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