Arc Raiders And Battlefield 6 Lead Steam’s Holiday Sales Shift

Arc Raiders led Steam’s best-selling games during the Christmas period, signaling a clear change in what players bought and played at the end of the year. According to SteamDB, the cooperative extraction shooter ranked first among paid titles between December 23 and December 30, excluding free-to-play games. Battlefield 6 followed closely behind, with the two shooters separated only by the Steam Deck hardware listing.

Arc Raiders reached the top position during one of the most competitive sales windows on Steam, overtaking long-standing chart fixtures. The ranking placed it ahead of titles that typically dominate seasonal sales, including Baldur’s Gate 3, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, and Grand Theft Auto V Enhanced. The list also included EA Sports FC and Clair Obscur, both expected performers during discount-heavy periods.

The data reflects a broader shift in shooter preferences. Arc Raiders and Battlefield 6 both deliver structured combat without ranked ladders or tournament-driven systems. Battlefield 6 launched without a competitive ranked mode, while Arc Raiders entered a genre traditionally defined by punishing mechanics and steep learning curves. Despite this history, Arc Raiders has drawn a large and sustained audience since launch.

The timing of the sales spike coincided with the Christmas holiday, when casual play patterns tend to dominate. SteamDB compiled the rankings based on revenue rather than unit sales, offering a clearer view of what players were actively purchasing rather than simply downloading. Free-to-play titles were excluded from the dataset.

Arc Raiders’ position at the top is notable given the extraction shooter market’s reputation. The genre has often catered to hardcore players, emphasizing loss penalties and high-risk progression. Arc Raiders softened that formula, combining structured PvE encounters with lighter PvP pressure. The approach appears to have resonated with a wider audience during the holiday period.

“Finally, a less stressful extraction shooter.”— Elie Gould, PC Gamer

Battlefield 6’s proximity to the top spot reinforces the same pattern. The game retained the series’s large-scale military combat while removing ranked play and narrowing the skill gap between players. Together, the two titles suggest that shooters designed for broad accessibility performed better than tightly competitive alternatives during the holiday week.

Beyond the top rankings, the sales list showed a mix of familiar releases and unexpected placements. Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora reached nineteenth place, ranking above Red Dead Redemption 2 and Elden Ring Nightreign. Its position contrasted with its quieter reception earlier in the year, underscoring how recognizable licenses can resurface during major sales periods.

The presence of the Steam Deck between Arc Raiders and Battlefield 6 highlights hardware’s continued influence on the platform’s revenue charts. Even during peak software sales, Valve’s handheld device remains a consistent top seller, often disrupting direct game-to-game comparisons.

Arc Raiders’ performance also follows a strong stretch of player engagement earlier in the season. The game previously set concurrent player records on Steam, briefly surpassing Battlefield 6 during peak activity windows. Its holiday sales result confirms that interest translated into purchases, not just playtime.

The Christmas rankings offer a snapshot rather than a long-term forecast, but they align with wider platform trends. Multiplayer games with flexible session lengths and lower stress thresholds continue to outperform during seasonal sales, particularly when discounts draw in new players.

Read also, Steam’s 2025 bestsellers list placed Arc Raiders in the Platinum tier alongside Battlefield 6, with nine of the top twelve revenue-generating titles classified as multiplayer experiences, reinforcing the genre’s dominance across the year.