ARC Raiders is dominating Battlefield and Call of Duty, and it’s likely because it’s not competitive

ARC Raiders continues to be the talk of the FPS community two months after its launch.

Live service shooters often have a very predictable life cycle. When the game launches, gamers flock to it and you’ll see incredible peak player counts that lead the community to believe it’s the next big thing (well, unless you’re Splitgate 2). Then, you see a sharp decline in players the following weeks. By two months, the game has basically lost all of its hype.

However, ARC Raiders may have surprising staying power.

ARC Raiders player count two months later

ARC Raiders was launched on October 30th, 2026. It’s now been out for a little over two months, so it’s time to see if the hype is still there.

According to Steam Charts, it is! There are currently over 421,000 players. What’s insane is that this is basically around the same number of players it had at launch. The game’s all-time peak on Steam was nearly 489,000 players.

While this is already quite incredible for a shooter, it’s even crazier when you compare it to other games in the genre – ones from more well-established publishers and series.

Battlefield 6 currently has about 114,000 concurrent players, which is already far less than ARC Raiders. However, this number is even more shocking when you see that the game’s all-time peak at launch was 747,000. This means most players have left and the hype is gone.

Over in Call of Duty land, there are 54,098 players (on PC only; I expect plenty more to be on console). The series’ all-time peak was over three years ago at 491,600-ish players. The hype has been gone for a while now and the past few games haven’t revived it.

“The game is casual”: Ninja says “no” to making ARC Raiders competitive

The reason that ARC Raiders has continued to maintain popularity is actually a bit surprising in the shooter genre: it’s casual. The game is a lot more friendly to folks who don’t grind the game or get sweaty in the server. It’s even believed that more aggressive players are put into the same lobbies on purpose to keep the sweats away from other players.

“They just did such an outstanding job of making it approachable for old farts like me. It’s an absolutely delightful experience for casuals,” said one player.

But being casual doesn’t mean boring. ARC Raiders’ gameplay has been consistently applauded by players of all levels. The game’s UX and sound design has been especially noteworthy, showing developers’ attention to detail and their focus on making an immersive experience beyond what other shooters often offer.

Recently, some gamers expressed a desire for a more competitive mode in ARC Raiders, which streamer Tyler “Ninja” Blevins shot down.

“There’s no way… They have to be trolling when they say stuff like that,” he said. Ninja noted he used to be a “nazi” about catering to pros first to ensure the game is balanced for casuals, but he recently found out it’s not true. At least not for ARC Raiders.

“Cater to the fucking casuals. Pro player is secondary,” he ranted. “Casuals are the people who are actually playing the game and spending a lot of money on the game. This game is casual.

“There better be no tournaments in this shit. I don’t want no Twitch Rivals ARC Rivals shit like they did with Escape From Tarkov.”

The majority of gamers agreed with the sentiment, saying that switching to a more competitive playstyle would kill the game. While competitive games should exist, there should still be some shooters that are left accessible and far less sweaty.