Arc Raiders – the phenomenon that came out of nowhere, but took the games industry by storm, maintaining player numbers not seen by most titles a few months after release. It’s been moving from strength to strength, maintaining an engaging gameplay loop that keeps Raiders grinding on.
This week we see a new update come to Arc Raiders, one that adds a new weather system to strategise around, and new Arc enemies on the hunt.
Starting with Arc enemies. First up we have the Firefly. This one is not going to be fun – a flying Arc that has a built in flamethrower, and we all know that fire hurts – a lot, and it doesn’t look like the rear rotors are exposed like with the Wasp and Hornet – so let’s hope they’re not too hard to bring down.
Next up with have the Comet, another rollerball Arc that ptrols the surface, don’t let these catch you in their sights though, apparently they bang pretty hard, and they don’t like to let their prey escape.
Then we have the new weather system, Hurricanes batter the surface. So we need raiders to go up and install new weather monitoring systems, you’ll need to head out, collect materials and get the system assembled as part of the new questline.
The Hurricanes come with some side effects though, reduced visibility, and that’s that crackling sound…? Oh yeah! Your shield is going to take a beating from particles degrading it’s protection while you light up like a Christmas tree for all the other raiders to see. You’ll need to adjust your tactics as you go, removing your shield if you’d like to stay hidden, but at the cost of that damage reduction – is it worth it?
Unfortunately, the update hasn’t gone as smooth as it could have, as to be expected with most updates, there have been some rebalanaces. Embark recently said they didn’t expect Raiders to collaborate as much as they have done, fights against the Queen and Matriarch were supposed to be tougher, so, there have been some adjustments to the crafting costs of some of the most powerful explosives.
- Wolfpacks now require rocketeer drivers (good luck with that!)
- Vita Sprays need tick pods
- Trail Blazers need a new Arc part (assume it drops from Firefly)
- Deadlines need new Arc part (assume it drops from Comet)
- And the Showstopper needs Hornet Drivers (which makes sense tbh)
The value of these items has increased, so that’s something, but then they’re also more expensive to buy from traders too.
Weapons have also been rebalanced, and it’s almost a blanket nerf to all of the most popular guns, including the Stitcher, Kettle and Venator, all having base damage reduced amon some other negative changes. Whilst the Aphelion and Jupiter have both received buffs, increasing fire rates or zoom and equip times.
Arc Raiders isn’t completely out to get players though, there is one major change, and one that was needed from the beginning to see Arc Raiders really succeed. Beards have been added! Let’s be honest, that’s all they needed to do this update and we’d have been happy. Just look at this handsome beast!
Other positives in this update include interactible pianos on maps, to go alongside the other instruments, fixes to Stella Montis collisions to prevent out of bounds areas being accessible and removal of all NVIDIA freestyle filters to prevent an unfair visual advantage. You can read the full patch notes for Arc Raiders here to see everything that have changed or check out the next update where Scrappy gets an upgrade and new weapons are introduced.
With the upcoming expedition, most people have already completed the requirements and are just coasting until the big day arrives, and if you’re one of those, now might be a great time to check out Marathon that is having a Server Slam Event in a few days, or check out what free demos are available on Steam Next Fest for this week only!