Celeste in ARC Raiders: Speranza's Leader Explained

A childhood spent in the First Wave

The official world page on Nexon's ARC Raiders site (Nexon owns Embark) gives Celeste more backstory than any other trader. She lost her parents young and had to fend for herself. When the First Wave hit, a group of Raiders took her in, and she saw the early resistance firsthand. The in-game Codex adds two specifics: she was nine when the machines came, and as a teenager she fought at the Battle of Victory Ridge, the fight that ended the First Wave. The ARC Raiders timeline shows where that sits.

That history runs through her quests. In Straight Record she admits that her squad built a trap by the Dam during the First Wave from an overloaded generator. Raiders now use it to cut comms and ambush each other, and she wants it gone. The follow-up, Keeping the Memory, opens with something close to an apology: "I lost my cool a bit when I sent you after that trap." Then she sends you to a makeshift memorial in the Formicai Hills for the people her generation lost.

Echoes of Victory Ridge returns to that ground after a tremor uncovers an old First Wave hideout, and it ends with you handing her Major Aiva's patch. Per the Codex, Aiva led the united Raiders at Victory Ridge and died there. Aiva was also Tian Wen's mother, which means Celeste fought in the battle where Tian Wen lost her. The game hasn't said whether Celeste knew Aiva personally.

From fighter to the person everyone brings problems to

The Nexon profile says her survival instinct and conviction contributed to the founding of Speranza, which became the base of the Raider resistance. The Codex is more modest: she was one of the small group that first moved in, and people kept turning to her for guidance and mediation until she became a pillar of the community.

Then the growth caught up with her. The Codex lists overpopulation, political strife and resource shortages as her daily reality, and says that with ARC gone for a while, Raiders started turning on each other. She clashes with leaders from other Toledo neighborhoods and gets pushback from civilian petitioners with their own ideas about running Speranza. The Nexon page ends her profile on the question that hangs over the whole game: will the Raiders back her, or go down fighting each other?

She still wants them united. In A Symbol of Unification she remembers the old Raiders' flag, "a scrap of cloth more than anything," and how seeing it meant allies were nearby. So she sends you to raise one over the Red Lake at Dam Battlegrounds.

What Celeste's quests reveal about her

Celeste hands out more quests than most traders, and they split into clear threads, each showing a different side of her. The full set, with objectives, is on the quests page.

The administrator: food, water and power

A big share of her work is plain logistics. A Balanced Harvest starts with good news (food production finally covers basic needs) and moves straight to the next problem, variety, which leads to hydroponic domes and a hidden seed vault. Her voice here is tired and funny. Water Troubles opens with "If you're here to complain about the water, join the club," and Bees! admits she's no expert, but the greenhouse crew badly wants some.

The politician: the Tubes Management

In Tribute to Toledo the Official Toledo Tubes Management demands a Power Rod for the use of "their" Slingshot tubes. Celeste's verdict: they're in no way official, "just thugs with lots of power." By Turnabout she's planning to recover evidence against the OTTM and get them off Speranza's back for good. She plays hardball when she has to.

The private Celeste

Celeste's Journals begins with "Okay, so this is awkward..." She lost two journals on outpost inspections and wants them back before someone else stumbles on them. In a later quest, Keeping an Eye Out, she goes looking for Bilguun, who spends most of his time Topside and isn't, in her words, the most sociable person around. Small quests, but they show a life outside the job.

Celeste's role in Frozen Trail

Her quests have tracked the signal since A Bad Feeling, where she warns that "even the slightest change to ARC's behavior could spell disaster." Embark's Frozen Trail preview finishes that thread: with the Raiders' help, Celeste and Shani triangulated the strange signal ringing across Toledo to Pendola Pass, an old Italian village and Exodus transport hub beyond the mountains. One of the Emperors has fallen there, and the Raiders' job is to reach it and find a way inside.

She also offers the Outpost to Raiders who answer her call, a base between the Rust Belt and the mountains that Embark calls the first step to reclaiming the surface. The Frozen Trail 2.0 update guide covers how it plays.

Her new quests follow the expedition. Exploring Pendola Pass begins with her noting that ARC has never converged on a place the way it has there. Sizing Things Up sends you in for a close look at the fallen Emperor and ends in a cinematic (the 2.0 known-issues list says it sometimes fails to trigger). Boarding the Frigate admits that "none of our old tactics work" against the Frigate. One more quest is titled Celeste's Teenage Rebellion; its speaker says the Frigates bring back shivers she hasn't felt "since I was a girl." The quest catalog doesn't list its giver yet.

Who voices Celeste, and why she looks different

Diana Gardner has voiced Celeste since the very beginning of ARC Raiders. In an October 4, 2026 post, Embark's Chief Creative Officer Stefan Strandberg said Celeste's limited facial animation had never matched Diana's performance. The Frozen Trail trailer was the studio's first use of full motion capture with a detailed face, and since the update Celeste looks more like Diana in the game as well. Embark plans to give more characters the same treatment.

How Celeste gets along with the other traders

Celeste sits at the center of Speranza's trader cast, and each relationship looks a little different.

• Embark calls Shani Celeste's biggest resource for planning operations Topside. Shani still has to make her case: in With a View she says it will take more than a hunch to convince Celeste about strange lights in the sky.
• With Tian Wen it's a long tug of war. Celeste spends Greasing Her Palms trying to sweeten her into community projects, and Tian Wen grumbles about the meddling before building a greenhouse, as she puts it, to do Celeste a solid. The Codex quotes Celeste saying she can't remember when Tian Wen showed up; one day she was just there, behind a deadbolted door.
• Lance keeps an eye on her moods. The Codex quotes him revealing that she collects mugs, silly printed ones especially, and that he keeps a stash at his clinic for her bad days. His quest Celeste's Childhood Drawings starts with him asking whether she's seemed down lately.
• Apollo tends to act first and check with her after. When he pays a Raider to look for a missing family in A Warm Place to Rest, his dialogue promises to clear it with Celeste later.

Celeste as a trader

In the shop, Celeste deals in crafting materials. The 2.0 patch notes add new materials for Outpost furniture and the newly introduced gameplay items. Current stock and prices are on the traders page.

Who is Celeste in ARC Raiders?

Celeste is the leader of the Raiders and the unofficial leader of Speranza, the underground settlement where you live between raids. She is a trader and a major quest giver, and in Frozen Trail she leads the push to the fallen Emperor at Pendola Pass.

Who voices Celeste in ARC Raiders?

Diana Gardner. Embark says she has voiced Celeste since the beginning of ARC Raiders, and Frozen Trail updated Celeste's in-game face to look more like her.

How old was Celeste during the First Wave?

The in-game Codex says she was nine when the First Wave hit and fought at the Battle of Victory Ridge as a teenager. The game doesn't give her current age.

Did Celeste found Speranza?

Not alone. The official world page says her conviction contributed to Speranza's founding, and the Codex says she was one of the small group that first moved in.