Arc Raiders currently draws in five times as many players as Battlefield 6

EA put a lot of pressure on Battlefield 6 to perform, and it seems to have delivered, at least at launch. What the latest Battlefield doesn't seem to have is staying power, as two months after launch, rival game Arc Raiders is doing a much better job of keeping its player base intact.

Arc Raiders and Battlefield 6 both released in October and immediately got huge numbers on Steam. Almost 750,000 people played Battlefield 6 at its peakand that's before its free-to-play Battle Royale mode Redsec joined the party. In the meantime, Arc Raiders reached nearly half a million concurrent players. Not quite as high as Battlefield, but equally, if not more impressive, since it's a brand new game and not the latest entry in an ongoing franchise.

People came for the battlefield, but they stay for the Arc Raiders

What's even more impressive than the respective games' launch numbers is what those numbers look like today. While Battlefield's concurrent player count has fallen off a cliff, Arc Raiders has held steady. You might even argue that its numbers have improved, depending on how you frame it.

A raider swinging a crowbar at the screen in Arc Raiders.

Although there were 253,000 people playing Arc Raiders on release day, that number continued to rise as more people found out about its existence and that it can be pretty good. A week later, more than 400,000 of you were playing Arc Raiders on Steam simultaneously, and the game has never looked back. Although it never went much higher than that, it consistently hits more than 400,000 players according to SteamDB, with people returning to the game every day.

One raider hides behind cover while three others search for him in Arc Raiders.

Family

Arc Raider's best weapon has become even more powerful thanks to an exploit

Players turn the kettle into an SMG.

Battlefield 6's Lofty Concurrent Peak is a distant memory

Although Battlefield 6 hit a much higher high, it has failed to maintain those numbers. After hitting nearly 750,000 players when it launched, its numbers have been on a steady decline ever since, according to SteamDB. The launch of season one at the end of October briefly saw Dice's latest entry in the Battlefield franchise hit 500,000 again, but since then Battlefield's player count has been on a consistent downward trajectory.

A tank and some soldiers in Battlefield 6.

While that's to be expected, and Arc Raiders is the outlier here, what's particularly concerning is the lack of impact Redsec had on Battlefield's numbers. Despite being free to play, Redsec had absolutely no impact on Battlefield 6's player count, at least not on Steam.

Fast forward to the end of December, and while more than 400,000 people continue to log in and play Arc Raiders on Steam every day, Battlefield 6 is pulling in around 80,000 players per day. On the bright side, it looks like quite a few of you may have received Battlefield 6 for Christmas, as its daily peak has been gradually increasing every day since Christmas Eve.