Arc Raiders has hit 16 million sales, an incredible result for the extraction shooter that has proven so successful for developer Embark and publisher Nexon.
In its latest set of financial results, Nexon said Arc Raiders sales had been “extraordinary,” and that it was the most successful new product released in company history.
We’re now six months since the launch of Arc Raiders, and deep into its inevitable “dead game” debate despite the fact it remains one of the most played games on Steam (neither Sony nor Microsoft make player numbers public). Yes, player numbers on Valve’s platform aren’t what they were during Arc Raiders’ explosive launch, but we’re still talking about a game that can regularly hit 100,000 peak concurrent players on PC.
Yesterday, Embark announced that Arc Raiders will only have two big content updates every year, sparking complaints from some within the community. The next update, Frozen Trail, is due in October. It adds new locations to explore, new enemies, new expansions to the story and lore, and updates to the game’s progression systems.
“Going forward, we’ve made the decision to release major updates twice a year – larger in scale, more impactful, with the goal to genuinely change how you play the game,” Embark explained. “Don’t worry, a dedicated live service team will continue running Arc Raiders day-to-day: regular live updates, plus balance fixes, bug fixes, store updates, and player events aren’t going anywhere.
“This additional development space also allows us to invest more deeply in the health of Arc Raiders, from progression and economy balancing to fair play and anti-cheat efforts. We know these are foundational to the experience, especially in a game where every encounter and extraction matters.”
Clearly, Nexon has high hopes for the October update. In its financial report, Nexon said Arc Raiders is “now settling in with a large and deeply loyal player community,” but the Frozen Trail update will “reshape” how the game is played, “which is great for reactivating users who finished the original game, and for attracting all-new players.”
The idea, then, is to use this update to convince lapsed players to return to Arc Raiders, and maybe bring in some new players in the process. But that’s not all Arc Raiders has going on. It’s still updating its other live service shooter, The Finals, and, according to Nexon, it has two new games in the early stage of development.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
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