Alongside the latest update for ARC Raiders that added the Cold Snap condition to the game, Embark Studios released a major patch that tweaked the current sandbox, fixed bugs, and seemingly tweaked a very popular skill. ARC Raiders has been in tatters since its launch on October 30, as the extraction game has managed to attract a massive audience and proved to be a huge hit for Embark Studios. To continue fostering that community, Embark has released new content on a monthly basis, keeping the experience fresh.
November's Outside of the North Line update, which added the unique Stella Montis map and community unlock event, December's content update for ARC Raiders brought snow and frost damage as new map conditions. Caught outside for too long, players will take incremental damage, although the risk is worth the reward as Cold Snap missions usually offer better loot. Additionally, players can participate in the Flickering Flames event, which includes a new merit-based reward track, as well as a new Raider Deck launching on December 26th. The event also brought a new update, though it seems to have had a negative effect on a popular skill.
All flickering flames event rewards in Arc Raiders
Here's how to get all the rewards available in the Flickering Flames event, including outfits, emotes, and more.
ARC Raiders Accidentally Nerfed Security Breach
The Cold Snap patch for ARC Raiders brought many positive changes, including bug fixes, map adjustments, and buffs to many aspects of the game. But it also made a subtle change to how safes work, removing their static spawn locations and instead creating them dynamically. For these cabinets, players first need the Security Breach skill, a keystone ability from the red tree to open these cabinets, which usually housed valuable and rare loot. Prior to this change, players would base their runs on getting to these lockers to make some hefty loot before extracting them.
With this change to the safety cabinets i ARC Raidersthe potential value from maxing out the red survival tree may not be as high as it once was for the cost required to get there. While the fact that these are created dynamically definitely benefits the game as a whole, since extraction games are based on unpredictability, there's no denying that it's possible that players sometimes won't find many, if any, during runs now. While some of the other skills may not be as exciting, they are definitely safer options than using the many points required for a skill that now may not always be helpful during runs anymore.
Thankfully, this update has also provided ARC Raiders the ability of players to respect their skill tree, so for those who want to move from the keystone of the survival tree, they can now do so. The cost of respecing is essentially 2000 coins for a skill and since players cannot make individual changes, the entire cost of a respec is entirely dependent on how many skill points have already been added. So, for those who have reached the max level of 75, a full skill tree reset will cost 152,000 in total.
While the potential loss of strong loot in safes is certainly disappointing, now is the best time to jump in and play the game. After the update, blueprints appear at a much higher rate ARC Raiders than ever before. While the patch notes indicated that Stella Montis received a boost to item and draw speeds, it may have instead affected gameplay on a global level. It's unknown how or if Embark will handle this, as players really love the change, but given how rare blueprints are supposed to be, it might be something the studio will want to adjust to prevent them from becoming too easy to come by.
On the other hand, considering how eBay lists for ARC Raiders blueprints have been blowing up lately, maybe leaving the buffed spawn rate for at least some of them is a viable option. While there isn't much Embark can do about real-world trading and its potential dangers with cheaters, keeping a boosted plan modifier active in-game really undermines the dealers, as players have a better chance of finding good stuff instead of spending money to get it quickly.
- Released
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30 October 2025
- ESRB
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Teen/violence, blood
