The number of active Steam players of “Arc Raiders” exceeds 480,000, and Quadruple CoD's release weekend peaks

Embark Studios’ new extraction shooter Arclight Guide Over the weekend, Steam player count hit a new high, with 481,966 concurrent players online. When Arc Raiders broke its own concurrent player record, black ops 7Call of Duty's Steam launch weekend saw lower-than-usual player numbers, suggesting competition could be affecting Call of Duty's success on Steam.

The latest mainline Call of Duty game, Black Ops 7, peaked at 100,332 players during its launch weekend on Steam, less than a quarter of Arc Raiders' peak weekend player count. Of course, the two numbers aren't directly comparable – Arc Raiders is only available on Steam and the Epic Games Store for PC, while Black Ops 7 is also available via Battle.net or the Microsoft Store, and is available on PC Game Pass is coming soon——However, the release number of “Black Ops 7” is also lower than the previous release number of “CoD” on Steam.

While last year's Black Ops 6 has been available via Game Pass since launch, it still peaked at over 300,000 players on Steam, nearly three times the number of its direct sequel. “Modern Warfare 3” will also have a higher release volume in November 2023, with a peak number of players of 190,000 in the release window.

The Call of Duty series has had a rocky history on Steam, with Activision choosing to release the game exclusively through its own Battle.net storefront for years before finally launching CoD Return to Steam in 2022. Since Microsoft acquired Activision, the game's PC audience has been further divided on PC, and Game Pass probably accounts for a sizable portion of PC players.

Black Ops 7's lower sales compared to previous Call of Duty releases on Steam suggest the game is facing stiff competition from other major releases in the genre this year. Arc Raiders just released First major updateplayers come together on weekends for community events Unlock new maps in record time. Battlefield 6 also continues to perform strongly, ranking second only to Arc Raiders in the rankings steam chart At its weekend peak, there were nearly 300,000 players.