ARC Raiders has a new mini-game nobody asked for: staring at an “In Queue” pop-up that never seems to move. For many players, clicking Play now just leads to a frozen queue screen, no Topside runs, and no clear information about what’s wrong.
What the ARC Raiders “In Queue” message means
When ARC Raiders shows an “In Queue” pop-up as you launch, it is not a traditional numbered queue with a visible position. In practice, it appears when:
- Login servers or core backend services are under heavy load or unstable.
- Embark has enabled a login queue as a throttle to protect party, voice, and matchmaking systems.
- In severe incidents, new players are effectively blocked from entering at all, even though the game says “In Queue”.
The key detail is that the game does not show where you are in line or how long you might wait. In some outage windows, the “queue” behaves less like a real line and more like a holding screen while the backend is failing to accept new sessions.
Why queues and outages spiked in November 2025
Two overlapping patterns are driving the error:
| Date | What players saw | Likely cause |
|---|---|---|
| Early November | Frequent “In Queue” on launch, 5–15 minute waits, login/matchmaking errors like ARMR0002 and AREX0024 | ARC Raiders blowing past ~330,000 concurrent players on Steam, plus console traffic, overloading servers |
| Nov 21 | Regional issues logging in and forming parties | Back-end stability problems; login queue enabled as a mitigation |
| Nov 26 | Widespread queue messages and outright connection failures across PC, PS5, and Xbox | Large-scale infrastructure outage, with cloud services (including Cloudflare) having issues at the same time |
In all of these windows, many players still managed to play while others were stuck at launch, so the problem is partly how your request hits overloaded infrastructure in that moment. That’s why one friend can be in a raid while you are watching “In Queue” for 20 minutes.
Typical queue times when servers are merely busy
When the backend is stressed but not completely down, the queue can behave like a real throttle:
- Common waits: roughly 10–15 minutes to get from the queue into the hideout.
- Lighter periods: 1–5 minutes, especially during off-peak hours.
- Severe congestion: 20 minutes or longer, with some players kicked back to errors instead of entering.
During full outages or cascading failures, waiting does not help much; the queue simply never resolves until services are restored.
Should you just sit on the “In Queue” screen?
When servers are stressed but not completely broken, staying on the queue screen is often enough. Many players report that:
- Waiting on “In Queue” for 10–20 minutes eventually drops them into the game.
- Repeatedly closing and reopening the game tends to reset their place, stretching the experience out.
When infrastructure is actually down, however, no amount of patience will force a login until Embark restores the backend. That’s when everything—queue, matchmaking, and even basic login checks—starts failing in the same window.
The Alt+F4 “background queue” trick players are using
One of the more persistent community tips for the “In Queue” pop-up is surprisingly simple:
| Step | What players do | What’s supposedly happening |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Launch ARC Raiders and wait until the “In Queue” popup appears. | The launcher has contacted the backend and placed your account into the queue process. |
| 2 | Press Alt + F4 to close the game window, but do not click Stop in your Steam library. |
The main window dies, but the launcher process may remain alive in the background. |
| 3 | Wait 1–4 minutes with Steam still showing ARC Raiders as “Running”. | The background process continues to sit in the queue without the popup in your face. |
| 4 | Either the game relaunches on its own, or you manually start it again from Steam. | If the queue finished in the background, the new session may drop you into the hideout almost instantly. |
Some players say this works “first try” and swear it is not a troll. Others see no benefit at all, or watch Steam claim the game is running while nothing comes back.
What’s actually going on is messy:
- On some PCs, closing the main window leaves a hidden process alive, which can continue to wait in the queue.
- On others, Alt+F4 fully kills the app, so you are simply exiting the queue and doing nothing.
- Even when it appears to “work”, it is hard to separate the trick from plain timing—you might have been near the front of the queue anyway.
In other words, it is a low-risk experiment if you are already fed up with staring at the pop-up, but it is not a guaranteed fix.
Other error codes often seen alongside the queue
The “In Queue” screen often travels with more explicit network and matchmaking errors. Common ones include:
| Error code | Where it appears | What it usually signals |
|---|---|---|
| ARMR0002 “Matchmaking has failed” | When trying to join a lobby with friends or matchmaking into a raid. | Backend matchmaking services are timing out or rejecting requests. |
| AREX0024 “Connection Lost” | During or right after login, sometimes mid-session. | Connection between your client and ARC Raiders’ backend has dropped or desynced; some players resolve it only with a full PC restart. |
| “Online connection error, online services are currently unavailable” | After the game launches, before you can fully load into the hideout. | Backend services are rejecting new gameplay sessions even if login superficially worked. |
These codes are different surfaces of the same underlying problem: heavy load or outright outages on ARC Raiders’ online services.
Basic troubleshooting that sometimes helps on PC
None of the following can fix a true server outage, but they can clear out local issues that mimic it or make it worse.
Fix ARC Raiders queue and connection problems on Steam (PC)
- Give the queue an honest 15–20 minutes first. If you have not tried simply waiting, do that before anything more aggressive. Many players get in this way, especially outside the absolute peak hours.
- Try the Alt+F4 background queue method once. With the queue popup open, press
Alt + F4, confirm the close, and leave Steam showing ARC Raiders as “Running” for a few minutes. If nothing happens, stop the game and relaunch normally. - Fully restart your PC if you see AREX0024 repeatedly. Some players with persistent AREX0024 on every launch clear it only with a complete system reboot; relaunch ARC Raiders immediately afterward.
- Avoid spamming reconnect. Constantly hammering “Retry” or restarting the client over and over can reset any progress you’ve made in the queue and contribute to more load.
On PlayStation 5 and Xbox, options are more limited: a full console restart and a single clean game relaunch are the main local actions that align with what has worked for PC players.
How to check whether ARC Raiders is actually down
Before sinking another half hour into retries, it helps to know whether ARC Raiders itself is in trouble.
- Look at aggregate outage sites: if there is a massive spike of ARC Raiders reports, the problem is likely not on your side.
- Check recent posts from the official ARC Raiders social channels; Embark has been quick to acknowledge major login and matchmaking incidents.
- Glance at community hubs such as large Discord servers or the game’s subreddit; if a deluge of players suddenly reports queue lockups or errors at the same time, you are probably hitting the same central issue.
When a full-scale outage hits, Embark has typically needed hours—not minutes—to stabilize things. In those windows, you are better off doing something else than cycling through queue screens.
Why ARC Raiders keeps returning to queues
The pattern from launch through late November is clear:
- The game’s popularity and intense concurrency numbers keep spiking past what the backend comfortably handles.
- Embark responds by turning on or tightening a login queue and by limiting how many people can be “Topside” at once.
- External infrastructure issues—such as disruptions at major cloud and networking providers—occasionally pile on top, causing full collapses where the queue is just a dead end.
Embark has signaled that the login queue is a temporary mitigation, not a permanent design feature. That said, any future surge—after big updates, events, or content drops—can bring the “In Queue” message back as a pressure-release valve.
For now, there is no secret setting to bypass the queue. It is mostly a patience test wrapped around server capacity and sometimes wider internet problems. The few things you can control are when you play, how often you restart the client, and whether you are willing to try the odd background-queue experiment while the backend catches its breath.
