Arc Raiders already has servers slammed by nearly 100,000 players in two hours, as weekend playtest begins

The Arc Raiders server slam has begun. The highly anticipated third-person pull shooter has only been available for about two hours (at the time of writing), and it’s already approaching 100,000 concurrent players.

This server slam is the last chance for interested players to check out the game before it launches on October 30, when you’ll need to purchase the game for £30.99 / $39.99 / €39.99. The goal of this test is, as the name suggests, to push the servers as hard as possible before full release.

Arc Raiders already had a public test in April. It was difficult to gauge the popularity of the test, given its availability on multiple platforms. Instead, it’s perhaps better to compare today’s weekend playtest to recent open betas of other games.

Compare it to Dune: Awakening. This game had a massive presence on Steam during its open beta, quickly reaching around 150,000 concurrent users on Steam on its opening day. Arc Raiders seems well on its way to passing the Dune: Awakening set bar, a good indicator of its popularity.

It’s of course unfair to compare Arc Raiders to the most recent Battlefield 6 beta, which had 250,000 players. waiting to play its open beta version on all platforms. Now, no one expects Arc Raiders to reach this level of popularity in a weekend playtest, but taking a look at where it lands this weekend between Dune: Awakening and Battlefield 6 could provide some insight into its eventual popularity when it goes premium.

These are of course different genres of games that must be taken into account. As a mining game, Arc Raiders’ biggest competitors are likely Escape From Tarkov, which is due for release on Steam in November, or it could also be Marathon, although it remains indefinitely delayed following a plagiarism controversy.

Either way, this weekend is your last chance to check out Arc Raiders before its full release later this month. If you’re attending or have already played, click below and let us know what you think. This weekend’s Arc Raiders playtest is playable on PC via Steam and Epic, Xbox and PS5. Nothing you collect will carry over into the full game, so go out there and have a good time.