ARC Raiders at One: 16 Million Sold and a Comeback Made of Snow
A year ago Embark's extraction shooter was a risky bet in a crowded genre. It has since sold more than 16 million copies, won seven major awards and, thanks to its Frozen Trail update, pulled lapsed players back to the surface.
Extraction shooters are a hard sell. You drop into a dangerous map, grab what you can and try to get out alive, and if you die, you lose your gear. For years that formula was a niche for hardcore players. Then, on October 30, 2025, Stockholm studio Embark released ARC Raiders, and the niche turned into a phenomenon.
One year later, the numbers are startling. Nexon, Embark's parent company, said in its Q2 2026 earnings letter that ARC Raiders had sold more than 16.3 million copies. The game has won seven awards at major ceremonies, including The Game Awards 2025 and the BAFTA Games Awards, and in October 2026 its Frozen Trail update brought it back to nearly 186,000 concurrent Steam players, its highest in seven months.
A year in numbers
- October 30, 2025: launch on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S at $39.99.
- About 2 months: more than 12 million copies, by Alinea Analytics' estimate.
- January 4, 2026: a record 3.2 million daily active players across platforms.
- Q2 2026: another 800,000 copies, taking the total past 16.3 million.
- ¥88 billion+: lifetime revenue reported by Nexon, with ARC Raiders making up about 15% of Nexon's revenue in Q2.
The Frozen Trail comeback
Live games live and die by their second year, and Embark clearly knew it. The Frozen Trail update, described as the biggest since launch, arrived in October with a snowy new zone, a dungeon-style endgame, an airborne warship, a 360-degree grappling hook and a camera mode.
Embark paired it with a free weekend on all platforms from October 8 to 12 and then a limited PvE-only test from October 13 to 20. That test was a big deal: ARC Raiders' mix of AI robots and rival players is its signature, but many lapsed players had asked for a calmer co-op option. Embark said the PvE matchmaking test recorded more than 30 million plays in a week and that it would study the data before deciding what to do next.
Beyond the game
ARC Raiders is also turning into a wider franchise. Nexon has signed a partnership with Chernin Entertainment, the studio behind Ford v Ferrari and the recent Planet of the Apes films, to develop film and TV projects based on ARC Raiders and The Finals. And in July 2026, a closed alpha test in China with Tencent beat its registration targets, a sign that the game's biggest growth market may still be ahead of it.
"We are truly grateful to all the Raiders who have shown endless love for ARC Raiders over the past year," executive producer Alexander Grondal said.
Why it matters
ARC Raiders proved that a premium, $40 multiplayer game can still break through in an era dominated by free-to-play. It has also set the template others are now chasing: WARDOGS' strong September launch was measured, by analysts, directly against ARC Raiders' first month. See how that comparison played out in our WARDOGS story, and how the year's other big games fared in our 2026 Steam hits round-up.
Nexon has described ARC Raiders' sales as "normalizing" after nine months. The Frozen Trail numbers suggest normal, for this game, is still very high.