In a bold statement that has rippled through the gaming community, popular streamer and former professional FPS player Shroud has publicly declared that Arc Raiders is the biggest game to emerge since Fortnite. This claim goes beyond hype and taps into one of the biggest conversations in gaming as 2025 wraps up, with Shroud championing Arc Raiders as a true contender for Game of the Year and a title that could define a generation of players.
Why Shroud Thinks Arc Raiders Is Bigger Than Fortnite
Shroud has not kept his enthusiasm for Arc Raiders a secret. Throughout 2025, he has been a vocal supporter of the extraction shooter, urging his massive audience to back the game ahead of the Game Awards. He called on fans to vote for Arc Raiders for Game of the Year, saying he genuinely believes it deserves the top spot and wants players to rally behind it rather than letting other critically acclaimed titles take the crown.
His confidence isn’t just about preference. Shroud has described Arc Raiders with the same kind of reverence people have for genre-defining games, comparing its impact and potential to something much larger than a typical multiplayer release. He has doubled down on this sentiment even when Arc Raiders didn’t receive a nomination for Game of the Year at the official awards, expressing frustration with the industry and claiming the game is “the world isn’t ready” for what it offers.
Arc Raiders Player Numbers Back Up the Hype
Numbers from Steam and across platforms make a compelling case for how big Arc Raiders has become. On launch day, Steam saw more than 250,000 concurrent players, a huge milestone for an extraction shooter, and the game went on to sell over four million copies worldwide in its first weeks.
What makes this even more impressive is that Arc Raiders continued to grow its player base well past its debut. Reports show peaks of over 700,000 simultaneous players across multiple platforms, demonstrating retention and sustained interest.
These figures highlight something unusual for a new multiplayer release. Most games see sharp drops in player count after the first few weeks, but Arc Raiders has maintained strong daily engagement and continues to be a conversation point across gaming communities.
The Extraction Shooter That Captured a Massive Audience
Arc Raiders is an extraction shooter from Embark Studios that blends player-versus-player and player-versus-environment mechanics in a PvPvE setting. The objective is simple yet addictive: scour hostile territory for loot, battle both AI and human opponents, and escape with valuable gear before time runs out.
The genre has traditionally been niche compared to battle royale or competitive shooters, but Arc Raiders has rewritten expectations by winning over both hardcore and casual fans. The fact that it launched in a year with other massive releases and still carved out a dominant space in player engagement speaks to its wide appeal and strategic design.
Numbers Don’t Lie
Shroud’s claim that Arc Raiders could be even bigger than Fortnite is ambitious. Fortnite redefined games as social platforms and cultural hubs with hundreds of millions of players worldwide over more than half a decade. Arc Raiders has only just launched and already made a significant dent in 2025’s gaming landscape, especially in the extraction shooter genre.
While it remains to be seen if Arc Raiders will sustain growth on the scale Fortnite did, the current numbers and passionate community suggest the game may have achieved something rare. Arc Raiders now sits among the most discussed and played titles of the year, and Shroud’s unwavering support has helped keep it in the spotlight.
With strong retention, big player counts, and continued updates on the horizon, Arc Raiders might just be the extraction shooter that reshapes expectations for multiplayer games in the years to come. Whether it truly becomes “the next Fortnite” is still up for debate, but in 2025, it has already proven itself a massive hit that gamers and influencers alike cannot ignore.
