ARC Raiders, even though it’s a PVP game at heart, can just as easily be described as PVP, on account of there being countless, mindless robots roaming the topside world and waiting for unassuming raiders to stumble into them.
However, despite their fundamental role in the game, we haven’t really seen expansions to the original ARC roster. That is, until now.
Though previously teased in the 2026 roadmap for ARC Raiders, Embark has now given us the first actual trailer for this new murder machine. We don’t actually see the thing, as the video only depicts several stormy scenes across the game’s maps, but we do get to hear it. And the sounds that it produces are as ominous as they come, with this strange “Firefly” ARC likely being of the prowling kind, probably lying in wait among the foliage in which maps like Dam Battlegrounds and The Blue Gate are totally covered.
This is one of the first major ARC additions to the game. We’ve seen several others in the game that, unfortunately, do not appear as actual enemies, such as the Barons (only showing up as husks) or the theorized Kings or Emperors (that we see walking in the distance on The Blue Gate, towering over the horizon). It is only a matter of time before we get even more of these robots roaming the world, perhaps in special raid events where cooperation and teamwork will have to triumph over personal interest if victory is to be achieved.
As for the Firefly itself, some have already theorized that it could look like a snake, which would fall in line with my assumption that it’s a predator or some other kind of silent killer meant to punish careless traversal through the moss-covered post-apocalypse. No exact release date for the Firefly has been given, but it’s bound to come as part of the Shrouded Sky update on Feb. 26. Another ARC, or “ARC Threat,” is to come in March, potentially expanding the roster even further.
