Shroud Has a Bold Prediction for the Future of ARC Raiders

Twitch streamer Shroud has made a bold claim about the future of ARC Raiders, the new third-person extraction shooter from The Finals developer Embark Studios, stating that it will be bigger than Fortnite. Despite the fact that some believed ARC Raiders was destined to fail when it launched sandwiched between Battlefield 6 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 last year, Embark has found huge success with its second title. Although that success hasn’t quite reached the same level as Fortnite, Shroud believes it’s not far off.

For those who might not be in tune with the many Twitch streamers and content creators, Shroud is a former esports professional known for being one of the top Valorant and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players around. These days, Shroud, whose real name is Michael Grzesiek, is known for being a popular Twitch streamer and content creator, playing titles like Apex Legends, PUBG, and, most recently, ARC Raiders. Like many streamers, Shroud regularly goes viral for his questionable takes and opinions, and he’s had a lot to say about Embark’s newest game. Late last year, Grzesiek accused The Game Awards of being “rigged” due to the fact that ARC Raiders was not nominated for Game of the Year. It was, however, nominated for Best Multiplayer Game, which it won.

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Shroud may have been disappointed that ARC Raiders wasn’t nominated for Game of the Year, but the extraction shooter has picked up plenty of other accolades and glowing reviews since its release in October. As of writing, user reviews for ARC Raiders on Steam are sat at ‘very positive’ with over 130,000 ratings. As for Metacritic, the shooter has a respectable score of 86 for official critic reviews and 7.8 for user reviews. These positive reviews are also showing in the game’s player count figures, as SteamDB shows that the title is holding steady and regularly peaking at around 300,000 concurrent users and remaining one of the platform’s most-played games. Of course, this doesn’t take into account PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, but it’s likely to be doing just as well on consoles.

Shroud Thinks ARC Raiders Will Be Bigger Than Fortnite

It’s fair to say ARC Raiders has taken the gaming world by storm over the last few months, and Shroud now appears to be going as far as to say that it could be bigger than Fortnite. During a recent live stream, the content creator said ARC Raiders is “definitely the biggest game since Fortnite.” He then went on to suggest that the only other games to come close to Fortnite‘s success have been Valorant and Apex Legends, but that ARC Raiders is already bigger than both of them and will even be bigger than Epic Games’ smash-hit Battle Royale “as time goes on.”

The response from fans appears to have been mixed, as some say Shroud is “100% correct” and others simply saying that he is “wrong” and “delusional.” One user even stated that nothing will ever beat Fortnite as Epic Games is “just too good at innovation.”

ARC Raiders being bigger than Fortnite is a bold claim for a multitude of different reasons. Epic Games’ free-to-play Battle Royale title has been going strong for over 8 years now and has accumulated more than 650 million registered accounts as of December 2025 (according to Demand Sage). Producing billions in revenue and millions of active players every single day, ARC Raiders would have to find unprecedented levels of success to overtake Fortnite. Although Shroud may believe this is possible, there is one huge factor that will set it back from achieving such a feat: its $40 price tag. Unlike Fortnite, which is completely free-to-play, ARC Raiders limits its reach drastically by being a premium title.

So while Fortnite will likely continue to hold firmly onto its crown, ARC Raiders has already dethroned the likes of Call of Duty and Battlefield 6. Many expected a new IP to be absolutely thrashed by two existing franchises, but ARC Raiders has managed to retain 91% of its Steam playerbase over the last few months, while Battlefield 6 has lost 85% of its. Call of Duty‘s player numbers are even more depressing, as the launch of Black Ops 7 seemingly failed to make any sort of significant jump in players for the Call of Duty HQ app when it was released in November.

Released

October 30, 2025

ESRB

Teen / Violence, Blood