ARC Raiders has been an undoubted success, with more than 350,000 concurrent players on Steam and likely millions of copies sold, however, if it wants to stick around long term after this successful launch, it is going to have to overcome a major challenge in a few weeks.
While ARC Raiders appears to be one of the few extraction shooters that has some unique ideas, there are more than a few similarities to the king of the extraction genre, Escape From Tarkov, and that game is finally set to leave beta and hit 1.0 in a couple of weeks. With the Tarkov launch happening on November 15, so close to the ARC Raiders launch, there is a very real chance that it could have an impact on the long term sustainability of the hottest game right now.
Many of the biggest names in the Tarkov community are currently playing ARC Raiders, and anecdotally, a lot of my Tarkov friends have also picked it up to put in some hours. But, there is no doubt that a lot of those players will return to Tarkov once the launch happens, and providing the launch isn’t a total disaster, you have to expect a lot of them to stick with Tarkov for at least a while to complete the new story content and experience the new end game map.
You’d also expect the marketing for the Tarkov launch to step up a little in the coming days, given it has been almost nonexistent so far, and that could also entice players who have enjoyed ARC Raiders to give Tarkov a try, especially as it will also launch on Steam.
So it seems almost nailed on that in a couple of weeks, ARC Raiders will see a significant drop-off in players as many head over to give the Tarkov launch a try. So the real challenge for it will be how well it can entice those players back, and keep the ones that stick around engaged. With a surprisingly busy road map for the rest of the year already announced it has a great shot at doing do, but it’s not a guarantee and if the Tarkov launch does steal a lot of players, ARC Raiders could end up being more of a flash in the pan than a long term extraction shooter competitor.
Personally, I hope ARC Raiders does manage to keep a massive player base and truly challenge Tarkov in the extraction shooter space. While there have been some solid attempts so far, few competitors have had the longevity Tarkov has, but ARC Raiders has a real chance of being that alternative option if it can get through the next few weeks and keep a solid player count.
