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ARC Raiders had a storming launch back in October, but Embark Studios‘ latest update is doing the game no favours.
Riven Tides, billed as the grand finale of the Escalation roadmap, arrived just a few days ago, promising a new map, a major ARC threat, and fresh content to keep players invested. The reception, however, has been rough.
Steam Reviews Take a Hit
Since the patch dropped, ARC Raiders has slipped to a ‘Mixed’ rating in recent Steam reviews. It’s the first time since launch that negative reviews are outpacing positives, and by nearly double, at that.
On April 29, the game pulled in 364 negative reviews against 221 positive ones. That gap briefly narrowed on May 1 to just a single review’s difference, but things took a turn again, 285 negative reviews versus 154 positive at the time of writing.
Player counts didn’t get much of a lift either. Riven Tides generated a brief spike that faded within a day, even across the weekend. Specific changes around PvP mechanics and weapon durability drew particular criticism from the community.
The Bigger Picture
It’s worth noting that Steam may not be ARC Raiders‘ primary platform, so reading too deeply into this has its limits. The game still holds an impressive 85% overall positivity rating, a figure built on the enormous wave of goodwill it generated at launch. Sustained negativity over weeks would be needed to seriously dent that number.
For now, Embark will likely be watching closely.
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