16 Million Raids a Day and 6 Billion Matches: Inside ARC Raiders' Massive First-Year Milestone
When Embark Studios launched ARC Raiders on October 30, 2025 across PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S, plenty of industry skeptics wondered how a mid-priced sci-fi extraction shooter would survive against annual FPS juggernauts. Exactly one year after opening the Rust Belt to the public, the Swedish studio founded by former DICE veterans is celebrating its first anniversary with a staggering set of official telemetry: players have completed 6 billion rounds in 365 days, averaging more than 16.4 million raids a day.
Six Billion Expeditions Topside and 180 Billion Minutes of Survival
In an official anniversary message published on the game's website, Embark Studios thanked its player base for turning Earth's mechanized surface into a thriving battlefield. Broken down over a full calendar year, logging 6 billion matches represents a massive time investment: assuming an average session length of 30 minutes Topside, the global community has poured roughly 180 billion minutes into the game, equating to 125 million days or roughly 342,000 years of cumulative gameplay.
That daily engagement is backed by historic commercial momentum. Published by Nexon, the title surpassed 16 million copies sold worldwide within its first six months, making it the most successful new IP launch in the publisher's history. On Steam, where the game reached an all-time peak of 465,097 concurrent players, average player counts surged by 219% over the past month following the October 8 release of the major Frozen Trail update, which overhauled progression with physical grappling hooks and Tier 5 weapons.
14.8 Billion ARC Machines Destroyed, Scrappy's Apricot Diet, and Altruism Records
To mark the milestone, the development team released an official "First Year in Numbers" infographic covering October 2025 through October 2026, while also dropping a free anniversary gift directly into the in-game inbox of every Raider who logs in this week.
The official dataset highlights both the relentless mechanical warfare across the Rust Belt and some surprisingly wholesome community habits:
- Over 14.8 billion ARC enemies destroyed: Squads have dismantled nearly 15 billion mechanical units since launch day.
- 3,920,595 Queens destroyed: Nearly four million apex ARC Queens have been brought down in high-stakes surface encounters.
- 2,919,521 Matriarchs destroyed: Almost three million heavily armored Matriarch constructs have been reduced to scrap.
- Favored weapon of the Rust Belt: The hard-hitting heavy hand cannon The Anvil officially stands as the community's most popular firearm of Year One.
- 5,643 Raiders healed by one player: A single dedicated combat medic spent the past year reviving and patching up more than five thousand teammates.
- 18 strangers healed in a single raid: The all-time record for Topside altruism toward non-squad players encountered in the wild.
- 3,625 Raiders taken out by a volcanic rock: Proof that environmental hazards in the Rust Belt can be just as lethal as orbital drop pods.
- 6,800 tonnes of food fed to Scrappy: Speranza's beloved rooster mascot has been well taken care of, with apricots officially ranking as Scrappy's favorite snack.
Why Embark Studios Left PvP Knockouts Completely Out of Its Year-One Recap
One fascinating detail stands out when examining Embark's official anniversary breakdown: every single metric focuses on PvE combat and player cooperation. There is zero mention of player-versus-player knockouts, extraction elevator ambushes, or rival Raider loot stolen. Instead, the studio chose to spotlight boss takedowns and strangers healing each other in the field.
That emphasis aligns closely with recent experiments on the live servers. Last month, Embark tested a dedicated PvE-focused toggle that drew more than 30 million cooperative raids from players eager to explore without constant friendly-fire paranoia. As we covered during the rollout of Update 2.3 and Embark's ongoing debate over a permanent PvE mode, a massive segment of the player base comes to the Rust Belt specifically for its oppressive machine ecosystems and emergent squad teamwork.
My Take: The $40 Gamble That Silenced Every Doubter
I still remember the wave of skepticism back in August 2024 when Patrick Söderlund and his team announced that ARC Raiders was dropping its original free-to-play model in favor of a $39.99 premium release. Plenty of commentators predicted the game would be dead on arrival, squeezed between yearly military shooters and entrenched extraction giants. One year later, 16 million copies sold and 16 million daily raids speak for themselves.
Pivoting to a fair upfront price tag allowed Embark to build a tense, atmospheric extraction shooter free from predatory timers, pay-to-win stash upgrades, and the endless flood of disposable cheater accounts that plague free-to-play competitors. And the fact that the studio's first-year infographic celebrates 14.8 billion scrapped machines and combat medics healing 18 strangers in a single match proves what makes the Rust Belt special: when the AI threat is this smart and terrifying, players don't always need to shoot each other in the back to have an unforgettable raid.
SEO consultant for over 20 years and digital entrepreneur, Charles "Grimtag" is the founder of Pro-Gamer.gg, Retrocharting.com, and Gamescharting.com. A competitive gamer, streamer, and retro game collector, he has worked in the video game industry for over 15 years, notably as a consultant for leading game price comparison platforms. Passionate about real-time performance data and gaming technology, he analyzes competitive esports, gaming hardware benchmarks, and creator workflows on Pro-Gamer.gg with an authentic player perspective.
