It might have been inevitable, but as Marathon’s server slam has commenced, ARC Raiders has taken a gut punch in terms of viewership. At the time of writing, ARC Raiders boasted more players than Marathon (on Steam, at least), but viewership for Embark Studios’ extraction adventure had hit an all-time low.
On Twitch, the viewer count was floating at around 22,000 as Marathon got started. That’s the lowest ARC Raiders has been in terms of active, engaged viewers since the game came out in October 2025.
Extraction Titans
ARC Raiders enjoyed a stunning time in the sun after launching at the end of October. It became regarded as one of the best games of 2025, and in our ARC Raiders review, we dubbed it the most refreshing extraction game ever made.
But almost month after month, the game’s viewer count declines. In December, it dropped -33% compared to November, and in February (this month), -23% from January. Now that a fair chunk of the game’s player base has moved off to see what Marathon has to offer, it’s suffering further, sitting at around 22,500 at the time of writing.
That’s a drop of around 94% since launch, from peak to current.
Funnily enough, Marathon, which comes out in just a week, has managed to trump ARC Raiders in a major way, despite only just entering its first open, public test. It has managed to secure a higher peak viewer count than ARC Raiders ever did, notching up a lofty height of 523,301 viewers, which was secured during Marathon’s gameplay reveal in April 2025.
As this is being written, Marathon boasts more than ten times the viewership of ARC Raiders, as everyone becomes curious to see what’s happening in Bungie’s new extraction game. The gap between the player count (on Steam) was just 30,000 players, too, in ARC Raiders’ favor.
Many believe that Marathon won’t hold a torch to ARC Raiders, which has proven to be overwhelmingly successful since being released in October. It might have some short-term success, but it’s becoming tough for new extraction-based games to really succeed in the increasingly saturated market.
Do you think Marathon can hold its own against ARC Raiders? Let us know on the Insider Gaming Discord server.
For more Insider Gaming coverage, check out the news that Gray Zone Warfare is now a PvE-first shooter
Grant has been gaming for 30+ years and in the industry for 10+. You'll probably find him playing a post-apocalyptic game or an extraction shooter somewhere.
More from Grant Taylor-Hill
Probably because everyone’s done everything in Arc, and we’re all just waiting for the Expedition reset next week. In the meantime, we have a free pass to try something else that looks interesting; but speaking personally and having given it a good go, I’m not enjoying Marathon as much as I wanted to, and I won’t be buying it. But I’m looking forward to starting a fresh run in Arc next week. And I’m not here to yuck someone else’s yum, plenty of folks are really enjoying Marathon, for good reason and good for them. But I don’t think it’s going to draw enough numbers to justify being a AAA game, or its price point. It’s too esoteric and it tailors itself too much towards high skill PvP players, with nothing for us casual slobs with poor reflexes. Honestly, I’m sad about it. If Marathon had pure PvE, I’d jump on it.