ARC Raiders' Rumored Budget Might Surprise You

According to an industry analyst, ARC Raiders, the new hit shooter from developer Embark Studios, reportedly had a budget of $75 million. The analyst also speculates that ARC Raiders has generated over $500 million since its debut in October 2025 and will likely go on to gross over $1 billion in sales, given its continued growth in popularity.

ARC Raiders became an unexpected hit last year and shows no signs of slowing down as the new year begins. Despite launching between two established shooters, Battlefield 6 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, ARC Raiders managed to catch the attention of gamers around the world and became a smash hit for Embark Studios. After tons of positive reviews from both players and critics, the third-person extraction shooter cemented itself as one of the best titles of 2025 when it picked up the Best Multiplayer Game at last year's Game Awards ceremony. So it likely won't come as a surprise to hear that the shooter has, apparently, made an absolute ton of money.

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By Derek Nichols

ARC Raiders Reportedly Had $75 Million Budget

According to industry analyst Michael Pachter (spotted by Insider Gaming), ARC Raiders had a budget of $75 million and has already made $500 million following its launch in October 2025. During a recent episode of Pachter Factor Live, the analyst discussed the recent events at Ubisoft, which saw the cancellation of six different games, including the highly anticipated Prince of Persia remake. Pachter explains how the studio takes too long to develop and publish new entries in its biggest series, while also discussing the differences in budget between Ubisoft titles and the likes of Rockstar Games, which is rumored to have spent between $1.5 and $2 billion on Grand Theft Auto 6, noting how Rockstar "can afford it" as the next entry in the GTA series is almost deadset to make its money back in the first week.

Pachter then says that comparisons shouldn't be made to the likes of GTA, FIFA, or Call of Duty, but should instead be compared to titles like ARC Raiders. "Little secret here, ARC Raiders cost 75 million to make," the analyst revealed. He then says that the shooter took 3 years with a team of 70 developers and has already made $500 million back and will "probably do close to a billion." Given that parent company Nexon has already revealed that ARC Raiders has sold more than 12 million copies to date and that it has a $40 price tag, Pachter's statement that it has already made $500 million is most certainly correct.

However, while Pachter says the title was in development for 3 years, Embark has already said ARC Raiders began as early as 2018/2019 following the studio's founding. The game was first revealed during The Game Awards 2021, but development took a huge hit when the team felt ARC Raiders simply wasn't fun enough as a PvE-only game, and they pivoted to turn it into a PvPvE game. This meant that The Finals, which was initially supposed to come after ARC Raiders, was released first while the team restarted work on its extraction shooter.

Its pivot from PvE to PvPvE was clearly a wise decision, as ARC Raiders continues to see hundreds of thousands of concurrent players every single day. Embark recently revealed its plans for the future of the title, confirming that there will be numerous major content updates over the next few months. The first, known as Headwinds, launched last month, bringing players a new map modifier, a controversial 1v3 matchmaking option, and more. For fans looking forward to a new map, Embark has said it will arrive in April alongside a new large ARC enemy, which is heavily speculated to be the Emperor.

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