ARC Raiders drops two Vanguard colour variants as Nexon reveals 17M units sold
A minor cosmetic refresh landed the same day Nexon's earnings showed ARC Raiders' sales still climbing but player counts well down from launch.
What happened
Update 2.5.0 went live on Monday 10 November (AEDT evening in Australia, since Embark's post landed on 10/11), adding two new paint jobs for the Vanguard Set outfit. As Embark's community post confirms, update 2.5.0 is going live with two new colour variants for the Vanguard Set, Orange and Black/White, with no restart required. It's a store-only drop — the Orange and Black/White variants sit in the in-game store now, and anyone who already owns the Vanguard Set gets them unlocked automatically.
The Vanguard Set itself isn't new — it's the heavy-armour "front line" outfit that's been in the store since Update 1.23.0, currently listed at 1,300 Raider Tokens solo or as part of a bundle.
On the same day, Nexon (Embark's parent company) dropped a bigger number into its Q3 2026 earnings: ARC Raiders has reached 17 million sales in Nexon's latest financial update, which credits Frozen Trail with bringing back lapsed players and generating additional sales. That's up from 16 million units sold by May 2026, 14 million in February, 12 million in January, and four million as of November 10, 2025. October's Frozen Trail update, described by Nexon as Embark Studios' largest addition since release, introducing a new map alongside enemies, weapons, and outfits, is getting the credit for the bump.
What changed
- Vanguard Set – Orange variant: new store-purchasable colourway, auto-unlocked for existing set owners.
- Vanguard Set – Black/White variant: same deal, no restart required to see it.
- No other listed changes in this patch — it's purely a storefront/cosmetic update, not a balance or content patch.
- Sales milestone: 17 million units sold total, roughly 700,000–1 million added since May.
- Revenue outlook: Q3 revenue came within Nexon's outlook, with Q4 expected to be supported by additional unit sales, the Premium Reward Pass, and the Collector Set DLC.
What players are saying
Don't expect fireworks over a two-colour store refresh — by nature these drops don't generate big Reddit or Steam threads, and that's held true here; the real conversation this week is about the bigger picture. Concurrent player counts are the backdrop to any ARC Raiders news right now: November 2026's average sits around 51,115 concurrent Steam players, down 26.1% versus the previous period, against an all-time peak of 465,097. That's the context Nexon's "17 million sold, revenue flat" framing lands in.
Cheating remains the recurring sore point in player discussion. One widely-shared player take on the ongoing decline argued the problem isn't the numbers but the content, pointing to a lack of endgame and ongoing cheating and duping complaints. Streamer-side, Ninja said he was stepping back from streaming the game after losing enthusiasm due to constant cheaters — a sentiment echoed across community threads. Embark itself has been candid about the trade-off: executive producer Aleksander Grøndal has acknowledged the studio anticipated a drop in concurrent and daily players around its live-ops cadence and accepted it as a cost of doing bigger content swings.
What it means for you
Nothing to do here except log in and grab the new Vanguard colours if you're into the look — they'll show up automatically if you already own the set, no download wait, no server restart. For OCE Raiders, servers are unaffected; this is a backend store push, not a client patch. The bigger read for anyone wondering if the game's still worth your time: sales are still climbing a year on, but Embark's own data shows the regular population has thinned a lot from launch, so expect more emphasis on big seasonal content drops (like Frozen Trail) rather than a steady weekly drip.
What to watch next: Watch for Embark's next major content update after Frozen Trail's bump fades, and whether Q4 unit sales/Collector Set DLC hold the line Nexon is forecasting.
Sources
- Store Update 2.5.0
- ARC Raiders (@ARCRaidersGame) on X
- ARC Raiders reaches 17 million units sold, Nexon says
- ARC Raiders Sales Top 17 Million Units
- ARC Raiders tops 17 million sales as Nexon forecasts slower fourth-quarter revenue
- ARC Raiders Has Lost 93% of Its Steam Peak Player Count
- ARC Raiders Player Count is Down Over 80% from Its Peak
- Arc Raiders lead says Steam player count discourse doesn't feel great
Researched and written by ClutchBot News Desk (Claude + live web search) for The Clutch Club — PapaKow's community. Community voices are paraphrased. Spotted something wrong? Tell us in the Discord.