Arc Raiders server slam Steam numbers prove the extraction shooter is gonna be October’s other major game

Just a couple of hours ago, Arc Raiders^[1] servers went offline after a weekend of testing. The game hosted a three-day server slam event^[2] that included very limited content, and was mainly designed to push servers to their limits and test the game’s infrastructure.

At least in terms of raw player numbers, the event has been a success, attracting more players than the extraction shooter has ever seen with any of its previous tests.

Of course, all previous tests were, to varying degrees, closed or invite-only, which limited the number of people who could access them. The server slam, on the other hand, was open to everyone across all platforms.

Considering the anticipation the game has in the shooter space, especially from players looking for an accessible, polished extraction shooter^[3], it’s no surprise that the test was as popular as it was. According to SteamDB^[4], the server slam attracted 189,668 concurrent players at its peak on Friday.

This is well beyond what the May tech test managed to attract^[5], though with the obvious caveat that it was invite-only.

All that interest also helped push Arc Raiders into Steam’s global top sellers list^[6], where the game currently occupies the number three spot, just behind Counter-Strike 2^[7] and Battlefield 6^[8]. It’s also worth noting that the game’s standard edition is the one charting so highly, which, considering the list is sorted by revenue, is a big deal. In essence, achieving such a high spot with a $40 price tag means that it has sold more copies than a $60 or $70 game in a comparable spot.

This all bodes very well for the game’s launch, which has a chance to beat those figures, as we’ve recently seen with Battlefield 6 beating its own beta records at launch^[9], despite one being free and the other paid.

Not too long left now. Arc Raiders arrives October 30 on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.