Typing Arc Raiders into your squad's group chat returned "*** *******" instead. One Twitch streamer's clip showing the censorship has already started making the rounds online. You can type "arc." You can type "raiders." You can type "arcraiders." You can even type "arc raiders." But you can cannot type "Arc Raiders."
A handful of Arc Raiders players have reported seeing the silhouette of a large ship in the clouds, but so far, only a Reddit user called Bewarden captured the incident in a video. The ship appears to be massive, but there's no indication yet it's confirmation of aliens in this world.
After weeks of waiting, Arc Raiders developer Embark has officially unveiled the first few months of the game's 2026 roadmap. The plan is split into four months, covering January to April, collectively dubbed Escalation. We're expecting a content update each month, with the majority of the biggest additions happening on the game's existing maps. There is, however, at least one new map in the works, but it won't be here until sometime in April.
After weeks of waiting, Arc Raiders developer Embark has officially unveiled the first few months of the game's 2026 roadmap. The plan is split into four months, covering January to April, collectively dubbed Escalation. We're expecting a content update each month, with the majority of the biggest additions happening on the game's existing maps. There is, however, at least one new map in the works, but it won't be here until sometime in April.
Responding to widespread player annoyance at the amount of cheating that really seemed to kick off over the winter break, the studio made clear it had become a big priority, and really seems to be delivering on that promise. The latest patch addresses two big issues that were spoiling the game for many: people shooting from out-of-bounds, and those who had found exploits that let them shoot through the game's geometry. It also takes care of a naughty duplication glitch.
Nexon president and CEO Junghun Lee said sales at this level, along with the fact that Arc Raiders reached 960,000 peak concurrent players, demonstrates "the potential for Arc Raiders to become another pillar in Nexon's portfolio of blockbuster franchises." The Korean publisher, which owns the Arc Raiders IP and developer Embark, further stated that Arc Raiders passed 10 million units sold by the end of December 2025.
The Trigger 'Nade's nerfage is a bit more significant. The throwable device, designed to be used as a sticky grenade when fighting drones and stompy bots in the game's PvE, became a favorite of PvP players who realized it could be used for mid-air detonation. So Embark has rejigged it such that "damage falloff has been rebalanced to concentrate the damage closer to the center of the explosion, and deal less damage further away." In other words, to ensure it still remains useful as a sticky explosive, but less effective for "trigger-in-air" attacks. There's also been a huge increase in the delay before it explodes, going from 0.7 seconds to 1.5 seconds, "giving players more time to react and making it harder to time the detonation in the air."
Notice it has four lights above it, which should give you a pretty good clue about what you need to do to get it open. But let's dive in. When all four buttons have been pressed, the cellar will open. To open the cellar door at Raider's Refuge, you'll first need to press four buttons that are all located in or around the POI.
It is a tale as old as time itself: a hack gets a third-person game to run in first-person, or vice-versa, and the result is unspeakable horror. Sometimes that horror comes from the monstrosities that result, but other times it can just be that the new perspective makes the game far more terrifying. It's the latter that appears to apply for Arc Raiders, after someone managed to get the game running in first-person mode and discovered it became even more intense.
Every moment counts, and every container in the game could end up having that item that makes all the stress of the run worth it. So, it makes sense you may be disappointed to come across a Security Breach locker you can't open.
You need to find the security codes at these locations. Once you arrive at one of these POIs, loot every container there until you or another player finds that location's code, then move to the next POI. Do your best to work together with other players in the lobby to prevent unnecessary overlap--meaning that if you see someone else, always ask if they've found one of the codes, or offer to split up and find codes at different POIs to keep things moving efficiently.
You don't need to extract to complete A Warm Place to Rest, but you will be trekking across the entire Buried City map to complete the objectives. With this in mind, a free loadout may not be your best bet, as you're rather likely to encounter raiders or ARC, which means you'll probably need extra healing items. It's your choice, of course, but we'd recommend bringing a decent gun or two, and enough heals to keep you trucking along safely.
You won't need to extract to finish this quest, so come in with a free loadout if you'd rather play it safe. Losing valuable items while questing is never fun, after all. That being said, there's some potentially good loot near the quest's Red Tower POI, such as the Santa Maria houses, so there's more to do in the area if you want to come better prepared.
Speaking of firefights, the locked room of Control Tower A6 tends to contain really good loot, so other raiders will often contest this location. If you're lucky, your visit to Control Tower A6 may end up quiet. But there's always a chance that you'll need to take someone out, so come prepared. When you're ready to tackle Lost in Transmission, follow the steps below. Visit Control Tower A6 Control Tower A6 is located in the lower middle of Spaceport. It's a tall, easily identifiable tower.
You don't necessarily need to extract to complete this quest, so no need to worry about bringing in your best gear or a safe pocket. You can feel comfortable going in with a free loadout to avoid risking any of your hard-earned items at the relatively busy spot you'll need to visit to finish your objectives. When you're ready to knock out the Untended Garden quest, follow the steps below.
December 2025 was a record-breaking month for Steam, with approximately $1.6 billion in gross revenue during the holiday season. While that success is shared among several games, the big winner of the holidays was Arc Raiders.
In Arc Raiders, running out of health doesn't mean instant death but rather falling belly-first to the ground, able only to crawl at a brutally slow pace while a timer ticks down until your complete death. You can no longer access your inventory, there's no way to heal yourself with your bandages, and your only hopes are to reach an escape hatch or be revived by a fellow player.
Like many on Twitch, TheBurntPeanut streams for long stretches - often over seven hours at a time - while playing the popular game "Arc Raiders." It's not unusual for 75,000-plus concurrent fans to tune in to watch him dancing, chatting, and cursing out his competitors while gaming. The man behind TheBurntPeanut has not yet disclosed his name or appearance. That's a long-standing tradition for some gamers, who often show their screens instead of their own faces, and especially for VTubers.
Redditor dreamthorp posted a 16-second clip of the incident on the Arc Raiders subreddit on January 3. They said they were playing a night raid on the Dam Battlegrounds, the game's very first map. While trying to extract from an elevator, a Leaper reportedly pounced on and downed them before the elevator doors shut. "I just wanted to get stabilized so I could leave," dreamthorp said in the comments of their Reddit post. It's at this point that they started screaming, "Somebody help me."
The thing that surprises me most about these personal GOTY lists, which I've been doing most years since I started working at Kotaku (including in the delivery room for my third child), is just how little I remember them after they go up. I could guess what was on the 2020 list, or the 2018 one, or my very first one from 2016, but I would probably get half of them wrong.
There are many who see the ability to kill and be killed by other players are vital for the game's tension and enjoyment. There are others who argue it's antithetical to the conventions of a game in which a scant, brave few are trying to bring back resources to those living underground. Either way, Arc Raiders players have reached a fascinating and fragile understanding in which most people, most of the time, don't kill.
I'm genuinely shocked by how much I love ARC Raiders. I've never been very interested in the whole PvE (Player vs. Environment) genre, aside from some brief stints with Destiny, but ARC Raiders's sci-fi post-apocalyptic vibe just works for me. I love the Blade Runner/anime-like aesthetic of its environments, enemies and outfits. I'm a sucker for its synthy soundtrack and immersive soundscape.
The Deciphering the Data quest in Arc Raiders sends you to Spaceport to check out some Magnetic Decryptors, and finding exactly where they're located can be a bit of a challenge. However, you've come to the right place, as we'll tell you exactly where you can find both locations you need to interact with to complete this quest from Shani.
To get the red color for the Ryder outfit, you'll simply need to play three matches of The Finals. Yes, it really is that easy--though you'll obviously need to have downloaded and installed The Finals to get things started. Thankfully, it's a free-to-play game, though if you've not played it before, you'll first be prompted to complete a short tutorial. In all, completing this challenge should take you about 1-2 hours at most.
If you've come across the Paving the Way quest in Arc Raiders, you're likely looking for an ENELICA building or wondering where to find some research notes. You've come to the right place, as we've got each step of Paving the Way listed out for you below. Just be aware that this quest requires you to visit two separate maps, so it's going to take a bit of time and effort to wrap it up.
The first step to completing A Toxic Trail in Arc Raiders is to head back to the drain where you previously found the barrel for the Source of the Contamination quest. This barrel can be found outside the Water Treatment Center on the Dam Battlegrounds map by approaching from the north via the swamp. Check the map below for the exact spot.
The Hidden Bunker is one of the handful of map conditions that rotate in and out of the game. As far as activities go, it's not terribly exciting: activate a bunch of satellites, download some stuff from a bunker, hopefully score some good loot underground, rinse and repeat. But this activity only takes place on the Spaceport map which is proving to be a tricky area for wall exploits.
I'm a humble man with simple needs. It turns out what I really look for in games is a really good bumpity-bumpity-bumpity noise while sliding down a flight of stairs. If it weren't already packed with a squillion other good reasons, this would still be enough on its own to have me booting up Arc Raiders. Let's not mince words: sliding down a flight of stairs is great.
Extraction shooters are eager to take everything away from you. And though Arc Raiders has proven to be a more friendly approach with its multiple paths of progression, dying at the end of a successful run still sucks. Getting pushed 99 percent of the way to failure and then surviving, however, is a feeling like no other. As more folks pour into Arc Raiders ' servers to hopefully extract and craft their way to glory,
I've been meaning to get around to Octopath Traveler 0's demo for a bit, but it keeps getting put on the back burner. However, a few days ago I saw Celsus, the game's thief character who a friend of mine described as "the hot priest from Fleabag." I'm a simple man, and hot men are more likely to get me to play a game than the most perfectly crafted turn-based battle system.
Knowing that you'll have a lot of traveling and surviving to do on Spaceport for the A Lay of the Land quest, we'd recommend you bring guns you're comfortable with, as well as plenty of healing items. Additionally, it's a great idea to bring in an augment that has a safe pocket, as you'll need to extract with a specific item to complete the quest back in Speranza.
Each Arc Raiders map has a few intriguing puzzles to figure out, and they'll usually provide you with some nice loot for solving them. For instance, if you've come across the Ancient Fort POI on the Blue Gate map, you may have noticed a cellar door and some electrical boxes scattered around. This puzzle is easy to complete in theory, but the random battery locations add a sense of randomness to the equation.
