Why couldn’t a Multiplayer Gem Be Game of the Year? ARC Raiders and the GOTY Debate

A Canadian streamer recently threw be a spicy take: according to him, ARC Raiders could easily be this year’s Game of the Year – even though most people don’t exactly think of a PvPvE extraction shooter as a typical GOTY contender. The idea landed surprisingly well, and not without reason: since its October 30 launch, the game has been hammering the servers, climbing the Steam charts and pulling in a wave of positive impressions from both critics and players.

ARC Raiders is developed by Embark Studios and takes place on a post-apocalyptic Earth where players head to the surface to scavenge while an army of machines called ARC – and other human squads – do their best to ruin those plans. Three-player teams (or lone wolves) drop into raids, gather loot and then try to extract alive; fail, and most of that gear is gone. The project was originally planned as a free-to-play title, but eventually launched as a $40 premium game with full cross-play on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, laser-focused on a hybrid cooperative–competitive experience.

Judging by the numbers, that pivot paid off. In the days following release, the game surpassed 350,000 concurrent players on Steam, rocketing into the upper tier of extraction shooters on the platform. User reviews have settled in the “Very Positive” range, with a recommendation rate north of 90% from tens of thousands of players – no small feat for a paid, online-only title. The sudden influx of interest did push the infrastructure to the breaking point: long queues, matchmaking meltdowns and “queue simulator” memes flooded social feeds, while the developers scrambled to shore up the servers and handed out free Raider Tokens as compensation.

On the technical side, ARC Raiders is already being called one of the year’s biggest showcases. Large open maps, dense effects, complex AI behaviour, dynamic weather and stable performance all coexist, powered by Unreal Engine 5. The studio is taking anti-cheat seriously as well, with a system that can automatically restore loot stolen by cheaters to their victims while coming down hard on offenders. On top of that sits an ambitious content roadmap: new maps, fresh ARC enemies, missions, events – and the team openly talks about a ten-year horizon for supporting and expanding the game.

From that angle, the notion that a project like this could muscle into the GOTY discussion doesn’t sound so far-fetched. Extraction shooters do something that many single-player adventures struggle with: they tell a different story every match. Whether you extract as a hero, barely making it out with your backpack full, or lose half your kit to a sniper hiding in a bush – none of that is a scripted cutscene. It’s an emergent, unrepeatable story created by players. After a great raid, people reminisce with the same “remember when…” energy as they do after finishing a strong single-player campaign – the difference is, here they wrote the story themselves.

Of course, the other side of the argument is easy to understand. Most Game of the Year awards are still associated with strong narrative arcs, clear endings and experiences you “play through once and you’re done”. A live game that constantly evolves, gets patched, receives new maps and events doesn’t fit quite as neatly into a one-year award box. ARC Raiders also isn’t perfect: the early server chaos, understandable caution around monetization and the extraction genre’s naturally narrower, more hardcore audience all make it easier for many voters to gravitate toward a “safer” single-player pick when scribbling down their GOTY choices.

Still, the streamer’s take raises a fair question: if a multiplayer title is this technically polished, delivers such a strong sense of shared experience and clearly shakes up the market, why shouldn’t it sit at the same table as the big single-player contenders? ARC Raiders has already cemented itself as one of 2025’s biggest surprises. How far it gets in the award circuits remains to be seen – but the conversation it has sparked about what a Game of the Year can be might end up more important than any trophy on a shelf.

Sources:
– PC Guru – Why couldn’t a multiplayer gem be Game of the Year?
– Steam – ARC Raiders
– PC Gamer – ARC Raiders 2025 roadmap and content plans
– Notebookcheck – ARC Raiders player count and server issues
– TechRadar – Compensation after ARC Raiders server problems
– Windows Central – Anti-cheat and loot compensation system in ARC Raiders