admin 
“The game is good,” reads one comment on a Reddit thread documenting Arc Raiders’ recent surpassing of multiplayer juggernaut Helldivers 2’s all-time top concurrent player count on Steam. “Real good,” another replies, followed by “the best,” “amazing,” “superb,” and “Game of the year.” Folks are loving the hell out of Arc Raiders, and the numbers show these enthusiastic Redditors aren’t alone.
Read More: Arc Raiders: The Kotaku Review
Over the weekend, Embark Studios’ new hit extraction shooter raced past what has, until now, arguably been the most popular extraction shooter on the platform, Arrowhead Studios’ PvE-only Helldivers 2. With Arc’s all-time concurrent player count hitting 462,488 at the time of this writing, the survival-based PvPvE shooter’s player peak outstrips Helldivers 2‘s top count of 458,709 by just a few thousand players. And with the game holding at 208,000 concurrent Steam players at the time of writing, it doesn’t look like it’s going to stop for a breather.
Helldivers 2 wasn’t the only shooter surpassed by Arc Raiders this weekend. Battlefield 6 was also left behind as Embark Studios’ new shooter hit the cherished number-three spot in Steam’s most-played games, behind Dota 2 and Counter-Strike 2 (like breaking the laws of thermodynamics, it would take an act of god to see those two games dethroned for any meaningful amount of time).
Read More: 14 Essential Tips For Getting Started In Arc Raiders
So, it’s natural to wonder, what is it about Arc Raiders that’s helping it break the curse of the extraction shooter?
Bitter PvP skirmishes aren’t souring the fun of Arc Raiders
Prior to its launch, it was natural to be skeptical of Arc Raiders’ potential to appeal to a wider crowd than previous games in its genre have. Extraction shooters haven’t been the smash hit that, say, battle royales or even hero shooters have been, and for some players the PvP element of Arc Raiders can make for a disruptive, uncomfortable experience.
But as a recent Reddit post with over 9,000 (sorry) upvotes confirms, fans of the extraction shooter are eager to accept the brutal, sometimes unfair-feeling outcomes that spontaneous PvP can generate, especially when those encounters involve extraction camping, which is when folks intentionally wait for others to extract before jumping them when they least expect it.
Read More: Arc Raiders: The Best Skills For Solo And Team Play
On said Reddit post, many are chiming in about alternative strategies for dealing with extraction campers, namely the use of escape hatches which you can either find or craft keys for. This, I’d wager, is a perfect example of why I think Arc Raiders is proving such a hit: The game is eager to help you find ways to get around uncomfortable situations. On top of its varied progression systems, Arc Raiders asks players to invest in strategic solutions to difficult problems and it seems to be working out well.
