Escape from Tarkov Gains Players on Steam While Arc Raiders and Marathon Lose Players

The first season brought players back to Tarkov.

Arc Raiders from Embark Studios had a strong launch. At one point, the game’s peak concurrent players on Steam exceeded 480,000, but it gradually lost its audience. Players criticized the developers for technical issues and a lack of new content. This past weekend, the peak stood at 39,000 players.

Released this year, the extraction shooter Marathon from studio Bungie, the creators of Destiny, also drew a certain amount of attention. The game’s concurrent players on Steam surpassed 88,000 at launch, but significant audience retention issues also arose. Recently, the game’s concurrent player counts have hovered around 4,000 to 5,000.

Against this backdrop, Escape from Tarkov stands out. Battlestate Games’ hard-core game had a more modest launch, showing a peak concurrent player count of nearly 48,000 at release, but its retention is much better. The player count gradually began to dip and settled around 20,000, while in recent months the game has been gaining momentum and average concurrent player counts are increasing.

The recent launch of the first season of Kord Breach in early August managed to draw player attention. Escape from Tarkov’s daily peak concurrent players on Steam surpassed 44,000 for the first time since last year.

Along with the season, the game introduced a free battle pass requiring players to search for special documents in raids, which can then be exchanged for rewards. Achievements for character progression with various seasonal modifiers are also included.