Frozen Trail 2.0 Lifts Arc Raiders Player Count Past 131,000
The extraction shooter cleared 100,000 concurrent Steam players for the first time since May after Embark shipped its largest update yet.
Embark Studios has shipped Arc Raiders' biggest update yet, Frozen Trail 2.0, and its patch notes run longer than anything the extraction shooter has received since launch. The headline additions are a new map, Pendola Pass, a reworked skill tree, and fresh weapons, gadgets and ARC enemies. Smaller lines carry real weight too: stash capacity gains two further levels for 328 slots before expedition bonuses, and the Anvil hand cannon moves up to blue rarity after outperforming rivals at its old tier. Players can now open the map while downed, drop loot straight from containers, switch off a backpack light for stealth, and scramble up steep slopes at a sprint.
Loot distribution has shifted as well, with Queen and Matriarch legs holding the higher-tier rewards instead of the leg armor, ending the old trick of stripping plating for easy cores. Embark is testing dynamic loot zones on the new map so hot spots vary between matches, a system it says could later be reapplied to older maps. The changes landed fast: SteamDB recorded a 24-hour peak of 131,388 concurrent players, the first time the game has cleared 100,000 since May. A free trial running through October 12 and a 50% discount are helping the surge.
Tags
- pc
- patch
Sources
Where this story ran: 4 outlets on 8 October 2026. The summary above is written by GamersGuild; the links go to the original reports.
Games in this post
ARC Raiders
ARC Raiders is Embark Studios' extraction shooter: squads drop into a surface overrun by machines, take what they can carry and try to reach an elevator before other players do.