Speranza in ARC Raiders: The Underground City Explained

Why do people live underground in Speranza?

The official world overview, published by Nexon for the Korean release, sets the game in 2180 and gives the order of events. An environmental collapse took most of human society. Generations later, survivors had rebuilt in the few habitable places left, some in the ruins of old cities and some in small scattered tribes. Then rough machines started falling from the sky.

In the Rust Belt, people fought those machines for ten years and held them back, but only for a while. A few years later ARC returned, and this time the survivors were forced off the surface and into hiding below it. Speranza is where they ended up. Our ARC Raiders timeline lays these events out in order, and where ARC came from is still an open question.

The characters call that first war the First Wave, and it still hurts. Celeste tells you the city lost a lot of people back then and that the memory is a raw wound for her (Keeping the Memory). Tian Wen reveals that her mother fought in what she calls the Raider resistance. The people running Speranza today lived through the last war.

What is Speranza like?

Speranza is not a grim bunker. The Steam page sells it as a lively underground society, and Embark pitches the whole game as a take on the "post-post-apocalypse": the end of the world already happened, and people have gone back to building lives.

The quest text gives the clearest picture, because the traders keep asking for help with ordinary problems. A sample of what the city is dealing with:

• Food production finally covers basic needs, so Celeste wants variety, starting with agricultural research from before the First Wave (A Balanced Harvest).
• The greenhouse crew is desperate for bees, and Tian Wen sets up a greenhouse of her own while insisting it is only a favor to Celeste.
• The water keeps going wrong. Complaints pile up, samples point to possible tampering, and Celeste plans to route water from a reservoir under the Spaceport (Water Troubles).
• Power is patched together from solar panels up in Buried City, generators that only last so long, and electrical substations that something, or someone, knocked out.
• The ground is a threat of its own. Shani tracks tremors with LiDAR scanners, and after an entire sector collapses, Apollo pushes to make the city earthquake-proof.
• People still want a normal life. Apollo restocks the library, plans a movie night and starts a football team because the kids were kicking empty grenade casings around.

Speranza has skylights

In the quest Clearer Skies, a swarm of disoriented Wasps crashes near one of the city's skylights. Speranza is underground, but it is not sealed off from the sky, and the machines get close enough to cause damage.

How traders and Raiders keep Speranza running

Five traders hold the city together, and Embark's introductions give each a clear job. Celeste leads the Raiders and keeps morale up, and Embark calls her a symbol of hope for humanity underground. Shani runs security and is the resident ARC expert. Tian Wen is the gun craftsman who mostly keeps to herself, Apollo is a traveling mechanic who settled here, and Lance is an android medic who has lost his memories.

Embark sums up the mood in one line: in Speranza, everyone has an agenda, and the traders are no different. You see it in their quests. Tian Wen complains that the city is short on everything except mouths to feed while Celeste launches precious supplies into the air for Raiders to fight over. Celeste, in turn, tries to sweeten Tian Wen into joining the community projects.

Raiders are the supply line. The traders send them Topside on jobs, buy what they find and turn it into food, repairs and weapons. The Raiders page covers that side of the deal, and the trader guide shows what each trader stocks right now.

Not everyone underground is a friend. A group calling itself the Official Toledo Tubes Management demands one of Speranza's Power Rods for the use of Slingshot tubes it claims to own, and Celeste is blunt that they are thugs with a lot of power, nothing official (Tribute to Toledo). Tian Wen has her own trouble with competitors from Toledo moving in on her trade.

Speranza, Toledo and the Tube network

Speranza reaches the wider world through tunnels the characters call the Tube network, and the city has already extended it toward the Blue Gate. Embark's Live Update 1.45.0 then described phantom ARC signals pointing to a mountain range just beyond its reach, and the Frozen Trail launch post picks up the thread by telling Raiders it is time to ascend the mountain.

Toledo is the bigger name in the background. Embark's Frozen Trail preview says the strange signal Celeste and Shani tracked had been ringing across Toledo, and quest text warns that the Frigates will hit Toledo sooner or later if nobody stops them. The official announcements do not spell out exactly how Speranza and Toledo fit together.

What the community reads in the Codex (theory)

The fan-run ARC Raiders Wiki transcribes an in-game Codex entry that calls Speranza the oldest and liveliest neighborhood of an underground city named Toledo. The same entry, as the wiki gives it, says Speranza began as an independent settlement at the start of what it calls the Second Wave, built into old underground infrastructure and buildings swallowed by sinkholes, and grew as survivors arrived from the Rust Belt and beyond.

That fits the official material and explains the Toledo references in quests. We have not checked the wording against the game ourselves, so treat it as the community's version until you read the entry in your own Codex.

The Nomadic Envoys: Ermal and Cassio

Speranza's newest visitors live on the surface. Embark's patch notes for update 1.29.0, released May 19, 2026, say the Nomadic Envoys had long avoided traveling below ground before they finally arrived in Speranza. They are members of a nomadic tribe hunting for valuable gear and weapons, and they deal by barter.

Ermal came first, making camp in Speranza and bartering with Raiders of level 25 and up: high-value ARC materials and rare weapons in exchange for rotating stock, a stash expansion and the Expedition Vault. Our Ermal trader guide covers that original stock.

Frozen Trail changed the guard. According to the 2.0 patch notes, the Nomadic Envoys sent Ermal back out on the trail and brought in Cassio. Cassio still trades for valuables and also asks friendly Raiders to help with certain quests.

Those quests say a lot about how the nomads see Raiders. In Taking Stock, which ends with a delivery to the Nomadic Envoy, the speaker explains that their paths rarely cross with Raiders on the surface, by design, because Raiders draw more attention than the nomads can afford. Another Frozen Trail quest mentions eerie contraptions the Nomads leave in their wake. Where they travel and how many of them there are is still unexplained.

How the Outpost changes life for Speranza

Frozen Trail, released October 8, 2026, gives Speranza something it has not had since the machines came back: a home on the surface. Embark's preview says Celeste is offering the Outpost to Raiders who answer her call to explore Pendola Pass, as a home away from home between the Rust Belt and the mountain range.

Embark describes it as the first step to reclaiming parts of the surface. In practice it extends your Raider Den with modules, furniture and a research station for weapon amplification. You earn it through a project whose first stage is called Research Topside Living Conditions, and that stage asks for a photo of a farmland house. The name of the stage says plenty about the question Celeste wants answered.

The idea grew out of earlier quests. Before Frozen Trail, Shani and Tian Wen were already planning outposts topside, and Celeste lost two journals during outpost inspections. She also revived an old flag from her early days, which once told you allies were nearby, and Shani reads the flags going up as a sign the time for hiding is over (Out of the Shadows).

Getting there took new transport. Embark's launch post says the Ballistic Gondolas are running with Shani's go-ahead, and that Raiders are the first group to travel beyond the Rust Belt. The Frozen Trail 2.0 update breakdown covers how to unlock the Outpost and what its research station does.

Why do people live underground in ARC Raiders?

An environmental collapse destroyed most of society, and then ARC attacked twice. The first attack, the First Wave, was held off after ten years of fighting in the Rust Belt. When ARC returned a few years later, survivors were forced off the surface and settled underground in Speranza.

Is Speranza part of Toledo in ARC Raiders?

Probably. Official text names Toledo as the area the strange signal rang across, and quests mention rivals from Toledo and the Official Toledo Tubes Management. The community wiki transcribes a Codex entry calling Speranza the oldest neighborhood of an underground city named Toledo, but Embark's announcements have not stated it directly.

Who replaced Ermal in ARC Raiders?

Cassio. The Frozen Trail 2.0 patch notes from October 8, 2026 say the Nomadic Envoys sent Ermal back out on the trail and brought in Cassio, who trades for valuables and asks friendly Raiders for help with some quests.

What does Speranza mean in ARC Raiders?

Speranza is the Italian word for hope. It suits a game whose world mixes old Italian towns with space-travel ruins, and a city whose Raider leader, Celeste, is described by Embark as a symbol of hope for humanity underground.