ARC Raiders arrived in October 2025 like a thunderclap. Developed by Embark Studios, the third-person extraction shooter immediately captured the attention of millions and helped push the extraction genre from a niche corner of gaming into the mainstream. According to SteamDB, the game hit an all-time peak of almost 482,000 Steam players on November 16 last year and it won Best Multiplayer Game at the end of the year, outselling 12 million copies. For a brief window, it was one of the most-played games on the planet.
That window is closing.
The Numbers
The extraction shooter has lost nearly 80% of its Steam players since the start of 2026. It still managed 428,579 concurrent players on January 1, then climbed as high as 466,372 on January 4, but since then, the count has been trending sharply downward. By April 16, the game’s 24-hour peak had dropped to just 90,138.
To put that in context, that daily peak still makes ARC Raiders the 15th most-played game on Steam, placing it ahead of titles like Overwatch and Marvel Rivals (console players aren’t counted in these figures). But the trajectory is hard to ignore, and it’s the speed of the decline more than the current numbers that has the gaming community alarmed.
Some community members have pushed back on the “80% collapse” framing. One detailed breakdown on Steam forums argued that the all-time peak was a short spike during a weekend event, not a stable baseline, and that using a consistent weekly median shows a decline closer to 36% from a launch baseline of around 250,000 players. Regardless of framing, the downward trend is real and accelerating.
The Cheating Crisis
The most discussed factor in ARC Raiders‘ decline is its rampant cheating problem, which surfaced just weeks after launch and has escalated ever since. Former FPS pro and streamer Shroud was one of the first high-profile voices to raise the alarm in early January 2026, claiming that half of his lobbies were full of cheaters and that Embark had “zero control” over their game.
Twitch streamer TheBurntPeanut followed shortly after, threatening to quit the game entirely unless Embark took action against stream snipers who were repeatedly targeting his broadcasts. The backlash prompted Embark Studios to begin issuing permanent bans, a shift from the 30-day suspensions that had previously drawn community outrage.
The problems persisted, however. In early April 2026, Ninja, one of Arc Raiders’ most dedicated streamers since launch, publicly condemned Embark’s anti-cheat approach on stream, saying the developers were “clueless” and that their AI-based system gave them a false sense of security. He subsequently announced an indefinite break from streaming, and Embark’s multiple pledges to implement “significant changes” have so far not resolved the situation to the satisfaction of high-level players.
The issue is compounded by the game’s aggression-based matchmaking, which funnels high-aggression players and streamers into the same lobbies, creating a concentrated pool where cheaters are more likely to appear.
Content and Design Concerns
Beyond cheating, players and analysts have pointed to deeper structural issues. Die-hard fans have complained that they’re running out of things to do, a problem the devs have acknowledged. There have been major updates every month in 2026, introducing new enemy types, challenges, and quests, but many players feel these haven’t offered enough to keep them coming back.
There’s also a persistent debate about the game’s identity. Critics argue that Embark has catered too heavily towards PvE players, forcing those who want more PvP action to look elsewhere. Some longtime fans go further, suggesting the game was originally designed around PvE and was pivoted to PvPvE at the last minute for commercial reasons, resulting in PvP systems that feel fundamentally out of place.
ARC Raiders‘ troubles didn’t happen in isolation. Bungie’s Marathon launched on March 5 entering the space as the first major direct competitor to ARC Raiders in the extraction genre. The timing, just as ARC Raiders’ numbers began their steeper slide, has led many to speculate that player migration is a factor, though it’s difficult to isolate from the game’s internal issues.
ARC Raiders is not dead. It currently sits at around 91,000 concurrent players on Steam, still placing it among the most-played games on the platform. But the drop is showing no signs of slowing, and there isn’t one single problem Embark can fix to stop the bleeding. A game that was at the top of Steam’s most-played charts just months ago is now in a fight for relevance.
The situation is a cautionary tale for the live service genre. If a game as critically acclaimed and broadly appealing as ARC Raiders can lose the bulk of its audience in under six months, it underscores just how fragile the live service model is, and how quickly player trust, once lost, is difficult to win back.