If 2025 has a defining theme in gaming, it’s multiplayer. This year delivered an avalanche of co-op hits, surprise success stories, and revamped classics. From small-team experiments that took off overnight to major franchises reclaiming their status, it’s been a golden era for players who love teaming up.
Among those breakout titles, Arc Raiders stands out as one of the biggest success stories — a game that not only found its audience quickly, but built a community full of memorable, shared moments. And if you’re a fan of the universe, the official merch at arcraiders-merch.com has become part of that growing excitement.
So when the Game Awards nominations were announced and Arc Raiders didn’t appear in the top categories, some fans took it personally. A few creators even claimed the process must be “rigged.”
But is that really what’s happening?
Historically, The Game Awards hasn’t shunned multiplayer
The idea that the Game Awards “hates” multiplayer games falls apart pretty quickly. Past winners and contenders include titles with no single-player modes at all. Hero shooters, co-op adventures, card battlers, and even early battle royale experiments have all been recognized at the highest level.
However, in the past few years, single-player, narrative-driven experiences have dominated the GOTY lineup. This has led to the perception that multiplayer titles simply don’t get a fair shot anymore.
But the reality is more nuanced.
Multiplayer games are harder to judge — by design
A single-player game is easy to evaluate: you finish it, reflect on its systems and story, and form a clear opinion. A multiplayer game is an entirely different beast.
Your experience depends on:
-
Who you play with
-
How the community behaves
-
The current meta
-
Balance changes
-
Server stability
-
Updates (or lack thereof)
Arc Raiders is the perfect example. Some players rave about friendly encounters, spontaneous cooperation, and emergent stories. Others run into ruthless opponents who shoot on sight, creating a completely different impression of the same game.
Two players can walk away believing they played entirely different titles.
That variability makes it incredibly challenging for a large voting jury to form a unified perspective within a short period.
Live-service timing usually works against new multiplayer hits
Most multiplayer games evolve dramatically within months. Day one is rarely reflective of month six — or even week six.
Arc Raiders is still in its early life. It’s excellent already, but jurors can’t predict:
-
how future updates will reshape it
-
whether a controversial patch will shift sentiment
-
if its community culture will stay strong or fracture
When Overwatch or PUBG were nominated years ago, critics and players had months of data, updates, and community cycles to judge them on. Even then, some of those nominations haven’t aged perfectly.
Multiplayer success is dynamic. And that makes awards timing tricky.
So what does it take to break through today?
For a multiplayer game to snag a coveted Game of the Year nomination, it needs to demonstrate not just popularity, but immediate and unmistakable long-term impact. Past nominees shared one thing: everyone could see, early on, that they would change the industry.
That is an extraordinarily high bar — much higher than most single-player contenders have to clear.
And it’s not necessarily unfair. It simply reflects the volatility of the multiplayer landscape, where hype can spike overnight and evaporate just as quickly.
Arc Raiders isn’t being robbed — it’s still writing its story
The Game Awards aren’t rigged, and Arc Raiders hasn’t been cheated. Instead, it’s living through the natural growing pains of any ambitious multiplayer title in a fast-moving ecosystem.
Will Arc Raiders evolve into a genre-defining classic?
Or will it fade after its initial surge?
We don’t know yet — and that’s exactly the point.
For now, what we do know is that Arc Raiders has built something special, something with a passionate community and a vibrant identity (helped along by the official merch at arcraiders-merch.com). Awards or not, that’s already a victory.