The Steam Winter Sale has begun, as has the Xbox’s, so once again everyone can fill their stockings with bargain games they’ll apparently never play. But one game you absolutely should be snapping up and instantly launching is one of 2025’s very best, the break-out extraction shooter hit Arc Raiders. It’s on sale for the first time since its October release, and it started off hella cheap in the first place.
Launched October 30, Arc Raiders was met with explosively positive reviews, and it offered its top-notch extraction shooter antics for just $40. Only let down by its moronic use of AI voices (and dear God, I hope the vast profits Embark Studios has made from this game will see them get those re-recorded by human actors), it’s otherwise a sublimely well-put-together game of first-person survival, PvP terror, and PvE excitement. And now it’s yours for 20 percent less for the duration of the winter break, bringing the price down to $32.
It’s worth noting, if you’re on the outside looking cynically in, that yes, Arc Raiders does look to make up for its half-price starting point with a range of ways to spend money on in-game cosmetics, but these really are just dress-up options you can totally ignore. This is genuinely one of the best bargains in gaming right now, in my inevitably correct opinion.
Oh my goodness I’m so in love with Arc Raiders. I wish I could convey just how unlikely this is for me, given my aversion to online gaming, tactical shooters, other people, and high-pressure gaming. It turns out I might be wrong about everything I thought I knew, because I cannot tear myself away. It’s running in the background right now, following my three successful runs in a row this morning (two of which saw me crawling into the elevator, because I’m still terrible at the game.)
You can pick it up for $32 on both Xbox and PC right now, and you probably should. But also yell at Embark until they reverse the hateful choice to implement AI voices.
