Another week starts, and we have witnessed another new video game release that has taken the community by storm. This time it is ARC Raiders, the multiplayer, extraction adventure title from Embark Studios, whose playtest was released on April 30 and climbed to the top of the Twitch livestreaming charts, even sending awry the plans of an established name like Bungie.
The upcoming extraction shooter, scheduled to be fully released sometime this year (as long as the tech tests go well), has made heads turn with its AI-inspired villains and beautifully rendered environments. Even popular streamers like Michael "shroud" Grzesiek, who emerged as the game's most-watched internet star over the past week, have become enamoured.
"That was fun, right? Like I said, that feeling right there, I didn't have that feeling one time in Marathon (an upcoming first-person shooter being developed and published by Bungie - editor's note). That feeling of like, I have so much sh*t, I cannot die right now. But I am impressed. They cooked. Embark Studios cooked."
- Shroud
With other prominent content creators like Saqib "Lirik" Ali Zahid also praising the game, it will come as no surprise that ARC Raiders has made the top ten on Twitch's rankings. Over the last week, it ranks tenth by watch time and within the top 15 for peak concurrent viewership on the purple platform.
With almost six million Hours watched (HW) between April 28 and May 4, it has done better than legacy Twitch games like Dota 2 and Overwatch 2. ARC Raiders has also outperformed recent releases like Marvel Rivals and R.E.P.O., taking advantage of the lack of competition in the extraction shooter genre to rise up the leaderboard.
Returning to influencers, among the most-watched online personalities to play ARC Raiders over the last week were Lirik, Jaryd "summit1g" Lazar, and Alan "alanzoka" Ferreira. With names from Japan, Turkey, Canada, and Russia also appearing among the top 15, it is safe to say the title has captured a pretty diverse audience from across the world.
The top language by watch time was English, led by creators from the US and Canada. Among other languages that the title attracted were Russian, Portuguese, German, and French.
Two features of ARC Raiders that have especially caught the attention of gamers are Progression and Player versus Environment (PvE). Many feel that the former is a pretty good ode to the genre-defining Escape From Tarkov, with its persistent skill tree allowing players to progress even if they die during a run.
The PvE segment, meanwhile, is more about trying to be stealthy and avoid confrontations than continuously engaging with the legitimate threats that are the Arcs. Arcs are basically the legion of AI-controlled robots that roam around maps, attacking anything that moves, and they can be pretty ruthless while they are at it.
Perhaps the biggest compliment to the success of ARC Raiders' latest playtest is that it has overshadowed the closed alpha of another much more hyped title. Marathon is Bungie's ambitious new extraction shooter that acts as the freshest entry in the original Marathon series, which began in 1994.
Many online outlets that have played and reviewed both playtests have quoted Embark Studios' offering as being the better game, at least in their current states. A lot of players have also said ARC Raiders' gameplay reminds them of the classic PUBG, which cannot be a bad thing, considering how genre-defining Krafton's battle royale has become.
Meanwhile, most streamers and reviewers have said that Marathon is a boring offering with nothing new or fresh for players to sink their teeth into. Of course, a lot can change over the next few months of testing, but whatever feedback Bungie has received cannot have pleased the studio.
ARC Raiders has witnessed quite the reception during its second tech test, and its developers will be more than pleased with what they have seen so far. However, the hard part is yet to come, as with rising expectations comes more hype for when the game launches properly later this year.
Should there be any major developments when it does come out, Streams Charts will be sure to provide updates. Meanwhile, readers can access in-depth stats of other new releases from this year and lots more using our PRO subscription.
