Apollo in ARC Raiders: The Mechanic Who Made Speranza Home

Apollo at a glance

Embark's post and the in-game Codex paint a cheerful picture.

• He runs a store by Speranza's Piazza that sells mostly makeshift grenades and gadgets, and the Codex says most of them are his own designs, field-tested by the most daring Raiders.
• When Speranza starts a major expansion, such as freeing up living space or extending the tunnel network, he's often named one of the foremen, doubly so if indiscriminate demolition is involved.
• He's an avid reader with a weakness for hard-boiled detective novels. The Codex jokes that some say he risks concussion on purpose, just so he can forget the big reveals.
• Embark's character post says he works on the community too, running a kids' football team and keeping the library stocked with books.

The grenade maker

Apollo's first quests make you one of his field testers. In Safe Passage he's heard about the signal Shani picked up and treats it as a challenge: "if it's an arms race they want, they can get one." What Goes Around has you burn ARC with a Fireball Burner, because he can't build ARC tech from scratch but can tinker with the pieces you salvage. Sparks Fly answers the Hornet problem with sticky explosives like the Trigger 'Nade and Snap Blast, since shooting them down wastes "a ton of ammo."

His enthusiasm runs ahead of him. The Clean Dream opens with "A talking water distiller! Crazy, huh?" before he explains that purer compounds would give his explosives more oomph. A later quest, Test Case, floats his pet theory that the Firefly is what you get when you cross a Hornet with a Fireball. He's careful to call it only a theory, and the tech, he admits, is above his pay grade.

The builder

The Codex line about Apollo running construction crews shows up across his quests. In A First Foothold the Tube network has only just reached Blue Gate, and his crew is trying to put up infrastructure around the valley while ARC keeps chasing them off.

Then the ground starts moving. Paving the Way begins after a whole sector collapses ("No wonder people are scared") and sends you after earthquake-resistant housing research from a company called ENELICA. Shani decrypts the data, and his follow-up at Pilgrim's Peak opens with pure stubbornness: data or no data, he means to make the place "earthquake-proof." At Riven Tides, Battening Down and Shoring Up Defenses put him to work on hurricane-battered seawalls and a coastline that has become the only place to spot new threats moving into the Rust Belt.

The neighbor: football, books and movie night

This is the side Embark highlights, and the quests back it up. The League starts with kids kicking empty grenade casings around Speranza. It's only a matter of time, he says, before they aren't empty, so he wants to set up an actual football team for the young ones. Building a Library asks you to bring back something for everyone to read from the old library in Buried City (a romance, a detective story and an adventure). Movie Night exists because everyone has been on edge since rumors of the ARC signal spread, and he thinks a screening would help.

Even his coffee quest has a story. In Espresso, a Raider trades him some grenades for a machine she found in Buried City that supposedly makes coffee but is missing parts. The heaviest of the lot is A Warm Place to Rest. A customer has seen a family sheltering in an old camp in Buried City, and Apollo offers to pay anyone who can bring them back. The trail of red markers ends at a grave.

What Apollo won't say about his past

Here the record runs thin. Embark says he can seem cryptic about his past. Shani's line about him in the Codex adds that Speranza isn't his first settlement: he claims to have lived in several, though he's vague on the details, and she grants that his energy for improvement and constant cheer have their uses. That's everything the game confirms. Where he traveled from, and why he left, hasn't been revealed.

Apollo's part in Frozen Trail

Frozen Trail gives Apollo a practical job: getting Raiders up the mountain to Pendola Pass. His quest To The Skies opens with the split: "Shani's content for the gondolas to get us up and down the mountain, but we have some engineers from Ferrovia more willing to take a risk. I can get behind that." Ferrovia has its own entry in the Codex's section on Toledo. In the quest's dialogue he admits to building gondola prototypes where Shani can't spot them, and grants that she has reason to worry, because one or two have exploded. Celeste's dialogue in Exploring Pendola Pass mentions him working with Ferrovian engineers to get Raiders there and back.

Embark's launch post says the Ballistic Gondolas are running with Shani's go-ahead. In the shop, the 2.0 patch notes add a set of Epic Augments to his offers; current stock is on the traders page.

Apollo and the other traders

He rates Shani highly. His Codex line says people think Celeste runs Speranza, and they're not entirely wrong, but without Shani everyone would be toast. He also works around her caution when he thinks the risk is worth it, as the gondolas show. With Celeste he tends to act first and explain later: in A Warm Place to Rest his dialogue promises to clear the rescue with her afterward, because petitioning for a rescue team would take time the family doesn't have.

Who is Apollo in ARC Raiders?

Apollo is a traveling mechanic who has made Speranza his home for now. He sells grenades and gadgets, often leads construction work, and gives quests about everything from ARC-part experiments to a kids' football team.

What does Apollo sell in ARC Raiders?

Mostly grenades and gadgets, many of his own design, along with utility items such as ziplines and barricade kits. The 2.0 update added a set of Epic Augments.

Does Apollo really run a football team?

Yes. Embark's character introduction says he runs a kids' football team, and his quest The League is where he sets it up after seeing children kick empty grenade casings around.

Where is Apollo from?

The game hasn't said. Embark calls him cryptic about his past, and the Codex says he claims to have lived in several settlements before Speranza without giving details.