Arc Raiders hits six-month high player count with update 2.0 and free weekend

Embark Studios has put a lot of work into maintaining and developing Arc Raiders in recent months, with the company recently announcing an upcoming co-op mode scheduled to launch for testing on October 13 while continuing to iterate on its anti-cheat processes and detection methods. In the meantime, though, there’s Arc Raiders Frozen Trail, billed as the game’s “biggest update since launch,” as well as a free weekend that runs through October 12.

The combination of the new update, which introduces a host of new content to the game and brings a host of gameplay tweaks and changes, and the free weekend has seemingly pushed Arc Raiders to a six-month high player count on Steam. According to SteamDB data, Arc Raiders tipped the scales with a peak of 131,388 concurrent players on Steam in the first 24 hours following the update and free live weekend. Some of Frozen Trail’s major updates include a new map, new weather conditions, new enemies and weapons, a revamped skill tree, a grappling hook, and other new navigation and traversal tools, as well as a new customizable base called The Outpost, filled with the Research Bench and hundreds of furniture designs that players can craft.

But not everything is positive. Embark removed Solo vs. Squads from matchmaking options, a move he explains as being driven by a desire for “players to be properly incentivized to use all available matchmaking settings, something Solo vs. Squads currently lacks.” Embark says it will re-evaluate the game mode, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see it added to the game again later after an overhaul. The full and detailed patch notes are available via the official Embark blog.