Discourse around ARC Raiders is high. Players have begun debating whether a multiplayer game can get the Game of the Year treatment.
There have only been a handful of multiplayer titles that won Game of the Year. The co-op game It Takes Two took home the crown at The Game Awards back in 2021, while PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds earned recognition for redefining the battle royale genre, to name a few.
Household IPs such as Call of Duty and Battlefield, on the other hand, haven't been able to take home the big coveted award against single-player giants like The Last of Us and Astro Bot.
Would a game like ARC Raiders take the cake? Let’s weigh in.
Content creator Shroud recently called ARC Raiders a “Game of the Year contender,” claiming that it could even surpass Sandfall Interactive’s Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 if enough players vote for it. This has sent gaming communities into a frenzy, causing a rift between two fantastic games.
We’re not ruling out the possibility that ARC Raiders could win a Game of the Year award, but 2025 has been packed with incredible releases from both indie and triple-A studios. A multiplayer title like ARC Raiders might secure wins in categories such as “Best Live-Service” or “Best Multiplayer Shooter,” but GOTY itself? It’s a tall order.
ARC Raiders is a great game, that’s for sure. Its mix of PvE and PvP elements attracted two kinds of players: those who enjoy a relaxing looting experience and those who thrive on the chaos of its PvP. The gap between these two playerbases could be a major roadblock to achieving that elusive crown.
Most Game of the Year winners tend to be something akin to "Oscar-baits" in the movie industry. Games that have a deep and emotional story, as well as a cinematic flair wit. The Last of Us and God of War are perfect examples, leveraging modern tech and providing performances with their strong writing. ARC Raiders, which lacks a story mode, will find it difficult to compete against story-heavy titles like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 or even Supergiant’s Hades 2.
Without a strong narrative foundation, apart from its War of the Worlds sci-fi setup, ARC Raiders’ chances of taking the GOTY crown are slim.
What ARC Raiders does best, however, is how it embraces what it means to be a videogame. It’s an extraction shooter that puts player freedom at its core, giving us unique experiences in every run thanks to its PvP, PvE, and the brilliant use of proximity chat. I’ve seen players role-play as sheriffs and villains by simply turning on push-to-talk.
ARC Raiders is comparable to games like Team Asobi’s Astro Bot, where it rekindled everyone’s love for platformers. It may not have the best story out there, nor was it revolutionary, but it was a celebration of gaming as a whole. It offered players a vibrant experience that pays homage to the games that came before it.
Games like Battlefield 6 and the upcoming Call of Duty Black Ops 7 are a tired trope of multiplayer first-person shooters, so winning GOTY is out of the question. ARC Raiders has an edge since it came from a saturated genre that’s made accessible to a casual audience. As someone who has never played an extraction shooter before, I found its gameplay loop surprisingly simple and enjoyable.
Will ARC Raiders win GOTY? Maybe. It has all the makings of what makes videogames great: it’s fun to play with friends or alone, and its replay value is limitless.
But let’s be honest here, we all know Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 will take that crown. Still, does winning Game of the Year even matter?
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