ARC Raiders' Frozen Trail Brings New Map & Full Combat Rework

From an elephant-sized Bully to amplified weapons and a rebuilt skill tree, here's what the update brings.

The latest update for ARC Raiders brings grappling hooks, upgraded weapons, a huge new map, and fresh skins. The game feels like it has come back to life. Frozen Trail feels like the biggest patch since launch, and it reads more like a full rework than a regular content drop.

This update touches almost everything. You get new things to chase, new ways to build weapons, your own topside space, a reworked skill tree, and gadgets for some silly fun. Frozen Trail goes live on October 8th, and ARC Raiders is free to play from October 8th through the 12th, so if you've been waiting for a reason to return, this is it.

The headline addition is Pendola Pass, a new region that takes you north into a huge frozen mountain area. An ARC Emperor has fallen there, and its wreckage is a gigantic machine towering over the whole map, which gives the place a real sense of scale. It's like seeing Bluegate for the first time, except everything is covered in snow, and it shows how much bigger these machines are than the Queen.

Three areas were played, and the variety is good. Wide mountain slopes let you slide down the snow and cover ground fast, while spots like Old Town and the Railyard tighten up with buildings, corridors, and separate areas.
A new weather event called Flash Freeze is like the cold snap event, but turned up. When one starts, you need to leave that part of the map and find shelter.

The first one kicked in around the 28-minute mark and lasted about three minutes. After a short cooldown, another section of the map can freeze over too. It adds tension to ARC Raiders matches and pushes players together.
Pendola Pass also has a map condition called Redirection, one of the map's favorite features.

Giant red lasers fire into the sky from active Emperor relays. 

Head to one, grab an Emperor beacon from inside, carry it into the open, and set it down to pull an incoming Harvester payload toward you. Debris then rains from the sky with explosions everywhere, and some smaller pieces carry loot. Eventually the main payload hits the ground, holding ARC materials and higher-end items. That laser isn't subtle, so other Raiders will notice, and in a full ARC Raiders match this could become a natural PvP hot spot.

Leaving Pendola Pass works differently too, using ballistic gondolas. You activate a transceiver to call one in, and it lands 100 to 150 meters away, marked with green smoke. It has only three passenger slots, and once someone boards, the timer drops sharply, which gets tense if you're still running. There are loopholes: riding out standing on top of the gondola works, and you can also use the new grappling hook to get dragged out behind it.

Speaking of which, the grappling hook stands out, and players will find wild uses for it. The grappling hook doesn't snap to a preset ledge. It's physics-based, so you can attach it to different surfaces, swing over gaps, build momentum, climb onto rooftops and throw a second one mid-jump.

You can even grapple an ARC machine to hold it in place, like the new Bully. The tether launcher links environment objects, ARC machines, and even other players, and the yank grenade pins something down and yanks it toward the blast, slamming Wasps and Hornets out of the air for one-shots. A banjo and a harmonica also arrive, and yes, a concert was played for science.

Frozen Trail also adds three ARC enemies.

The Bully, the Skulker, and the Hydra. The Bully stood out most. Something dog-sized comes to mind, but it's closer to an elephant, and it's aggressive. Get its attention, and it chases you, fires a shotgun-style blast, and launches a missile that splits into smaller explosives, which fly through windows and doors while hiding inside buildings.

The Skulker is tiny, hides in bushes and around corners, and keeps taking potshots and repositioning, but it hits hard if you ignore it. The Hydra wasn't fought, but Embark has shown it: a stationary ARC with several weapon sets that can target players individually at once.

The preview left two endgame activities off limits. The Frigate is a massive ARC vessel sent into the area after the fall, and Embark describes it as closer to boarding a pirate ship: you go aboard, push through its hazards, sabotage it from inside, and escape with the loot.

The fallen Emperor is ARC Raiders' version of a dungeon, with an interior you can explore that reconfigures its layout between matches. Trying the Frigate and seeing how that plays out can't come soon enough. Weapon amplification is a great addition and should help ARC Raiders last longer.

Fifteen weapons get amplified upgrades, which are branching paths that change how a gun works. The Burletta can become an automatic machine pistol, great for wrecking people; the Renegade can get a scope for range; and the Rattler can get incendiary rounds, making it one of the strongest weapons. 

Most weapons that weren't overpowered got a path. 

Tracker rounds, which let you follow targets after a hit, sound very useful; the Bettina can get explosive rounds for more ARC damage, and the Bobcat is already strong enough to skip upgrades for now. Some legendary mods, like the Anvil Splitter, also appear in these branches, so weapon amplification changes how progression and loot work.

That progression ties into the new Outpost, an expansion of the Raider Den that gives you your own topside space. You can decorate the Outpost with furniture and trinkets you collect, and Embark says this is a first version with room to grow, possibly including visits from other players.

The Outpost also houses the Research Station, which you need to amplify weapons. At the Research Station, you research upgrades and gather specific rare materials to craft them. The skill tree also got a big rework. Embark seems to have made more of your points matter: skills you once bought just to reach something better were moved or made cheaper.

The big nodes now offer a choice of abilities, some wild, like running up walls or infinite stamina, and certain capstones require more points. Most of what was shown looked useful, so the skill tree could really change your builds.

ARC Raiders also gets two new weapons.

The Stiletto is a light-ammo battle rifle for medium- to long-range combat that feels like the Renegade, while the Bantam is a snub-nosed revolver with a great cowboy-style hip-fire animation, like an alternate Anvil. Weapon stencils bring cosmetics to guns: skins you can find and craft, with the best ones likely locked behind tougher content.

New character skins include the Capotasto set, which makes you look like a robot train conductor, and the Ice Giant. Raider Decks now come as Reward Passes with free and premium tracks. Premium costs 1,150 Raider Tokens, all of which you earn back by finishing the pass, so you can carry them into the next one.

Cheating has been a growing problem in ARC Raiders, and Embark says it's changing its anti-cheat system after player feedback. That's welcome news, since getting shot by a cheater while carrying hard-earned loot is miserable. The updated anti-cheat brings stronger detection, permanent first-strike bans for known cheat software, broader hardware bans, and tighter limits on making a new account to return.

Embark is also testing fixes for unfair matchmaking, such as queue teaming, where players queue together to enter the same solo lobby, and says it's now separating known teaming groups. More PvE-focused options are planned too. Hopefully the anti-cheat work pays off.

Pendola Pass is great, but the gameplay additions make this update feel substantial, and ARC Raiders finally has goals to work toward again. Between the Frigate, the Research Station, and everything else, there's plenty to chase, and with cheating being addressed too, now is a good time to jump back in.