What's surprising about ARC Raiders isn't that it's a popular game that sold well; there was a lot of hype leading up to its launch, and developer Embark Studios already had a lot of great feedback from the beta tests it ran. Its staying power and continued upward momentum are what's surprising, as no one could have predicted it would continue to be one of the most-played games on Steam each and every day since it arrived.
Now, according to Alinea Analytics, Embark Studio's third-person extraction shooter has reached a new milestone, with over 12 million copies sold, says analyst Rhys Elliot. "So ARC Raiders passed 12M copies sold over the weekend (Alinea estimates)," Elliot wrote in a post on Bluesky.
Not only has it hit yet another sales milestone, but it also set a new record for its daily active users, with over 3.2 million players tuning in yesterday, January 4, to spend their final hours of the winter/holiday break playing some ARC Raiders.
When ARC Raiders launched in October 2025, it was immediately Embark Studios' biggest game, reaching over 200K concurrent players on Steam and who knows how many more on consoles. It hit 2.5 million copies in its debut week, and barely a week later, it had surpassed 4 million copies sold. Yes, there was a fair bit of controversy around Embark Studios' use of GenAI, but that never seemed to slow down the game's sales or the fact that it was dominating the conversation around multiplayer games heading into the end of the year and awards season.
It was the most searched video game of the year according to Google, and was one of Steam's best-selling games by revenue in 2025. Embark Studios' continued use and promotion of GenAI still follows the game whenever it comes up in conversation, but it's clearly not a hindrance to it, as at the time of this writing, there are over 240K concurrent players in the game on Steam right now.
It hasn't even dropped below 250K concurrent players since launch, according to SteamDB. Its staying power has been impressive, to say the least, and it wouldn't be surprising at all if the defining game of 2026 was this third-person extraction shooter from October 2025.
About the author: David has been writing about videogames, technology, and culture since 2020, with a focus on reporting daily news across multiple publications, including GameDaily.Biz, GameSkinny, and PlayStation Universe before joining Wccftech in 2025. David started contributing as Canada/US reporter for Wccftech's gaming section in 2025. Besides being up-to-date on the industry's movements, he loves interviewing developers, reviewing games, and writing intricate essays about the symbolism and layered meanings to be found in rich narratives as he's done for publications like GamesIndustry.Biz, LostInCult, and others. Outside of games he loves movies, music, theatre, his hometown, and his family, though not necessarily in that order.
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