ARC Raiders Goes Free for One Weekend, Frozen Trail Included
ARC Raiders is free to play for a few days, so anyone curious about the hit extraction shooter can try it without paying. The free weekend runs October 8 to 12 on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, according to ARC Raiders. It is the first giveaway of its kind for the game, and it starts the same day as the Frozen Trail update.
The weekend
Access starts at 09:00 UTC on October 8 and ends at 08:00 UTC on October 12. That is 5am Eastern and 10am in the UK on the opening day. You get the full game, not a trimmed demo, including everything in Frozen Trail. If you buy the game afterward, your progress carries over.
The game cost $40 at launch. Embark has not announced a discount tied to the event.
ARC Raiders is free to play from October 8 to 12.
The update
Frozen Trail is the largest patch the game has had. It adds a snowy map called Pendola Pass, three new enemy types, weapon upgrades and a reworked skill tree. Embark has also moved away from frequent small updates toward fewer, bigger ones, and this is the first under that plan.
An extraction shooter drops you into a map to loot, fight robots and other players, then escape with what you found. Die, and you lose it. It is tense, but easier to pick up than most competitive shooters. Our earlier look at a Close Scrutiny event shows how the game handles limited-time content.
The numbers
TechPowerUp reports the game has sold about 16.3 million copies, roughly $552 million in revenue, since its October 2025 launch. It is the biggest new franchise for publisher Nexon.
Player counts have cooled, though. Concurrent players on Steam peaked around 354,000 in November 2025 and sat near 37,000 by mid-2026. Many people who stayed are deeply invested: more than half of active players have logged 100 hours or more.
A free weekend aims at the people in between. Those who bounced off the game early, or never bought it at $40, get a reason to look again with new content waiting.
Worth a try?
For anyone who likes shooters but dislikes constant sweaty player-versus-player matches, yes. The cost is a download and a few hours. Check the size on your platform before Thursday, since a game this large can take a while to install.
