Arc Raiders launches to over 260,000 concurrent players and 88% positive early reviews on Steam, outdoing The Finals even at $40

Arc Raiders
(Image credit: Embark Studios)

Arc Raiders is finally out, and while the devs have acknowledged the "insanity" of launching between Battlefield 6 and Black Ops 7, it seems those worries might be for naught. The extraction shooter has launched to strong early reviews on Steam, and even with a $40 price tag it's managed to outdo developer Embark's previous, free-to-play title The Finals in terms of sheer player count.

As SteamDB shows, Arc Raiders has reached a peak concurrent player count of 263,739. That figure is still rising, and I've already had to go back and update it multiple times as I continue to write this story. That makes it the number four game on Steam right now – not bad when the top three is made up of titans like Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, and Battlefield 6. That's not even the full Arc Raiders player count, since it doesn't account for players on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S..

Early player reviews are looking strong, too. With the caveat that the full game has only been out for a matter of hours, the first few thousand Steam reviews are sitting at 89% positive. The few negative responses largely seem to be focused on the game's cosmetic pricing, which is offering skins at a pretty steep $20 apiece. We'll see how the community responds to the monetization – and the long-term depth of Arc Raiders' gameplay – as the days after launch roll on.

Dustin Bailey
Staff Writer

Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.

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