Arc Raiders vs. Helldivers 2: Which Co-op Shooter Fits You?

If you want tense, risk-it-all looting against other players and machines, pick Arc Raiders; if you want chaotic, drop-in co-op combat against alien hordes with up to three friends, pick Helldivers 2. Both are currently among the most-played co-op shooters on PC and consoles, but they solve a different problem: Arc Raiders is a third-person extraction shooter built around scavenging and escaping with your loot intact, while Helldivers 2 is a third-person horde-combat shooter built around calling in firepower and holding the line with a squad. This guide compares both games on gameplay style, platforms, price, squad size, player population trends, and which kind of player each one actually suits.

What Is Arc Raiders?

Arc Raiders is a multiplayer extraction shooter from Stockholm-based Embark Studios, the team also behind The Finals. Set on a future Earth overrun by a mechanized threat called ARC, it casts players as Raiders who descend to the surface to scavenge gear, craft and upgrade equipment back at a home base, and complete Trader quests, all while trying to extract before other Raiders — or ARC's machines — cut the run short. Embark originally announced the game as free-to-play before switching it to a premium model ahead of its October 30, 2025 launch on Steam.

What Is Helldivers 2?

Helldivers 2 is a third-person co-op squad shooter from Malmö-based Arrowhead Game Studios, published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Per its official PlayStation game page, it's "a frenetic third-person co-operative team shooter" in which Helldivers fight for Super Earth against three enemy factions: the bug-like Terminids, the robotic Automaton Collective, and the psychic Illuminate. The core loop revolves around completing objectives under time pressure while calling in stratagems — orbital strikes, turrets, resupply pods, and more — that can just as easily wipe out a teammate as an enemy, since friendly fire is always on. The game launched on PS5 and PC on February 8, 2024, and arrived on Xbox Series X|S in August 2025. Arrowhead has kept it alive with a steady stream of premium Warbonds, including one releasing the same week as this comparison.

Extraction Shooter vs. Horde-Combat Co-op

This is the real fork in the road. Arc Raiders is built on risk/reward tension: you land on a map with whatever gear you brought, loot the area, fight other Raiders and ARC machines only when you have to, and then race to an extraction point — lose that fight or miss your window, and everything you were carrying is gone. Deaths are expensive and permanent for that run. It rewards caution, map knowledge, and reading other players as much as it rewards shooting.

Helldivers 2 is the opposite kind of adrenaline. There's no loot to lose on death — you respawn via hellpod and keep fighting. The tension comes from overwhelming enemy numbers, a strict mission clock, and stratagems that are powerful but require real coordination to use safely around teammates. It's built for yelling at your squad over voice chat as a Bile Titan bears down on you, not for quietly creeping through a building hoping nobody hears your footsteps. If Arc Raiders is about what you're willing to risk, Helldivers 2 is about what you can survive together.

Platforms and Crossplay

Both games are available on PC and both current-gen consoles, but their PC storefronts differ. Arc Raiders is sold on Steam and the Epic Games Store, plus PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, and Embark's official site also lists GeForce NOW cloud-streaming support and cross-platform play across PC, PlayStation, and Xbox. Helldivers 2 is Steam-only on PC alongside PS5 and Xbox Series X|S; per its release history, the Xbox version (ported by Nixxes Software) arrived in August 2025 and brought full cross-platform play across all three platforms, while PC and PS5 had offered optional cross-play since launch. Neither official page explicitly confirms Steam Deck support, so handheld players should check current compatibility ratings before buying.

Price and Editions

Pricing is close enough to be a coincidence worth noting. Arc Raiders' Standard Edition is $39.99 and its Deluxe Edition is $59.99, with the Deluxe tier adding the Wanderer cosmetic set and 2,400 Raider Tokens, according to its Steam store page. Helldivers 2 matches that structure exactly: a $39.99 Standard Edition and a $59.99 Super Citizen Edition that adds cosmetics, Super Citizen status, and a Premium Warbond Token, per its PlayStation store listing. The meaningful price difference is access, not the sticker: Helldivers 2 is also included at no extra cost for PlayStation Plus Extra and Deluxe subscribers, which effectively gives console players a free way in that Arc Raiders doesn't offer.

Squad Size and Matchmaking

Arc Raiders caps squads at three Raiders, with solo and duo play fully supported for players who don't want to coordinate a bigger group. Helldivers 2 allows up to four Helldivers per mission, which maps better onto the classic "bring the whole friend group" co-op structure. The extra slot matters in practice: Helldivers 2's objectives and stratagem combinations are tuned around a four-person spread of roles, while Arc Raiders' smaller squads keep extraction runs tighter and arguably tenser, since there are fewer people to keep alive and fewer ways for a raid to go sideways before everyone even reaches the extraction point.

Player Population and Concurrent-Player Trends

Both games launched huge and then settled into smaller, steadier communities, which is normal for live-service shooters. For Arc Raiders, Steam concurrent players reportedly reached 250,000 on launch day, and cross-platform concurrency topped 700,000 by November 10, 2025, according to Embark's own figures as cited on Wikipedia's release summary; the game had sold more than 4 million copies by November 11, 2025, and reached 14 million copies by February 2026. Independent SteamDB-style trackers have since shown live Steam concurrency settling into roughly the 27,000–31,000 range through mid-2026, with 24-hour peaks climbing back toward 50,000–60,000 around content updates like October's Frozen Trail release.

Helldivers 2's numbers tell a similar launch-then-plateau story at a larger scale. Per Wikipedia's sales timeline, the game sold roughly 1 million copies in its first three days, passed 8 million copies with a reported 450,000 concurrent Steam players by mid-March 2024, and crossed 19 million copies by October 2025 (about 12.6 million of those on Steam). By January 2026, Arrowhead and Sony put cumulative sales above 20 million copies and revenue above $700 million. As with Arc Raiders, live concurrency has cooled substantially since launch: independent Steam-tracking sites reported roughly 22,000–27,000 concurrent players through mid-2026, a fraction of the 330,000-plus seen in the opening weeks, but still enough to keep matchmaking fast on both PC and console.

Content Cadence: Seasons, Warbonds, and Updates

Embark has settled Arc Raiders into a biannual rhythm for major content: the official Arc Raiders site lists the Frozen Trail update as the current headline release, alongside a smaller seasonal structure — Trials Season 6: Frozen Trials launched October 12, 2026 — plus store updates and a limited-time PvE matchmaking toggle beta that ran October 13–20, 2026. Helldivers 2 runs on a faster cycle: Arrowhead ships a premium Warbond roughly every month, with recent releases including Entrenched Division in March 2026, The Exo Experts in April, Ironclad Democracy in September, and the Scope of Authority Warbond — adding a bolt-action sniper rifle, a backpack-fed anti-materiel rifle, and stealth-focused armor — launching October 20, 2026, per the PlayStation Blog announcement. Helldivers 2 also briefly joined the PlayStation Plus Game Catalog in some regions in August 2026 alongside a free Devoid of Liberty update, underscoring how Arrowhead leans on frequent, smaller drops rather than Embark's bigger, less frequent ones.

Which Game Fits Which Player?

Arc Raiders rewards players who like tension they can control: planning a loadout, reading a map, deciding whether a fight is worth the loot on your back, and feeling genuine relief when an extraction goes clean. It's a better fit if you've enjoyed extraction shooters like Escape from Tarkov and want something with a lower entry barrier and a more forgiving death penalty, since you only lose what you're carrying, not character progression.

Helldivers 2 rewards players who want to log in with friends, pick a stratagem loadout, and immediately start fighting something bigger than themselves. There's less strategic patience involved and more improvisation under pressure — it's built for squads who want chaos and dark comedy as much as tactics, and its four-player cap and frequent, free-to-earn Warbonds make it easier to jump in casually without feeling like you're behind.

If you like both styles, the good news is the overlap in price and the fact that the games don't really compete for the same session: Arc Raiders runs are typically 15–25 minutes with real stakes, while Helldivers 2 missions run 15–40 minutes with no permanent loss, so plenty of players rotate between the two depending on mood.

The Verdict: Arc Raiders or Helldivers 2?

There's no wrong answer at $39.99 each, and neither game is going anywhere soon given both studios' active 2026 update cadences. Pick Arc Raiders if risk/reward looting and PvPvE tension is the draw; pick Helldivers 2 if you want big, loud, four-person co-op chaos with a lower cost of failure — or if you already have PlayStation Plus Extra, since Helldivers 2 is effectively free on that tier. Players who want both extraction stakes and horde combat in rotation aren't choosing wrong either way; they're just picking which night they're in the mood for.

What to Play Next

If you're still deciding, start with whichever trailer or store page grabs you first: Embark's Arc Raiders site and the Helldivers 2 Steam page both have current trailers and system requirements. For deeper dives on either game, see our breakdown of Arc Raiders' maps, classes, and season structure, our look at how it compares to Escape from Tarkov, and our coverage of the Scope of Authority Warbond's new weapons and release date. Both games also publish patch notes directly through their official channels, which is the most reliable way to track balance changes and new content before deciding where to spend your next few weekends.

Written byJonah Reyes

Jonah Reyes leads Pandromeda's gaming coverage: console and handheld hardware, release dates, pricing changes, patch notes and the business moves behind the biggest franchises. He sources every date and price from the platform holders and publishers themselves, and says plainly when something is still only a rumour.

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