Arc Raiders will get major updates every six months going forwards, with the next one set to roll out the shooter’s largest map yet

Arc Raiders is switching up its update cadence, with developers Embark having decided that dropping a major set of additions every six months is better for the shooter’s long-term health than sticking to a monthly update grind. The first update set to be released under this new modus operandi’s also been revealed: it’s called Frozen Trail and will include the game’s biggest map to date.

“When ARC Raiders launched, we planned to offer monthly updates,” Embark executive producer Aleksander Grøndal explained in a blog post outlining the cadence switch. “The intention was to keep you all engaged, to ensure the game always felt fresh, and to give you reasons to keep braving topside. But once the game was in players’ hands, we saw that the kind of long-term experience we want to create for ARC Raiders requires more transformative updates.

“Over time, we’ve found that the pressure of a monthly cycle limits how impactful these updates can be. You feel it, and we feel it too. Running at that pace isn’t sustainable, or compatible with the bigger ambitions we have for this game.”

These bi-annual updates will aim to be “larger in scale, more impactful, [and] with the goal to genuinely change how you play the game”. Grøndal also made clear that smaller live updates will carry on arriving in the gaps between them, alongside “balance fixes, bug fixes, store updates, and player events”.

The first major update set to drop following this shift is called Frozen Trail and has been pencilled in for October. It’ll include “a new landscape in the Rust Belt with layered design and new mysteries to uncover in the largest map in the game”, plus the likes of new enemies, new goals for folks who’ve hit a progression ceiling, and an improved skill tree. Embark also promise it’ll give folks a chance to start investigating what ARC are and where they come from.

Grøndal appeared to paint a bit more of a picture in terms of how that last bit will fit into Arc Raiders’ wider narrative plans a bit further on in the post. “Right now, Raiders are facing an escalating ARC threat, and the society in Speranza may feel helpless against it,” he wrote. “But Raiders aren’t built to stay on the back foot: the goal has always been bigger than survival – it’s about one day reclaiming the surface. Frozen Trail will start to progress this goal and expose elements of this challenge, but it is really just the beginning. We aim to constantly shift the paradigm that Raiders operate under so you feel the effects of your actions and perseverance against ARC.”

Finally, next week will see the introduction of a trader aimed at offering late-game players a better way to offload unwanted items. He unlocks at level 25 and has rare items, cosmetics, and handy perks to offer in exchange for your unwanted bric-a-brac, as well as errands to fetch specific rare items you can trade in. A “broader set of improvements” is in the works longer-term, seemingly with the hope of convincing more players to head off on progress-resetting expeditions.