The ARC in ARC Raiders: The Machines That Rule the Surface

The First Wave and the return of ARC

The official world overview, published by Nexon for the Korean release, gives the order of events. After the collapse, survivors rebuilt in the ruins of old cities and in small tribes. Just as civilization began to recover, rough machines started falling from the sky. The people of the Rust Belt fought them for ten years and stopped them, but only for a time. A few years later ARC came back, as if out for revenge, and pushed the survivors off the surface.

Characters in Speranza call the first war the First Wave, and its wreckage is still lying around. Shani says the Barons did more damage during the First Wave than every other machine combined. Now they are husks, fixed in place where they fell, and she wants one opened because their internals might hold the answer to keeping ARC at bay (Dormant Barons). Raiders still loot Baron husks on maps like the Spaceport.

Newer wrecks turn up too. Shani says a Deforester near the Blue Gate caused real devastation, but its intact husk makes a pristine research sample. Another wreck there puzzles her, because nobody from Speranza brought it down (With a Trace). The timeline puts both invasions in order.

Where did ARC come from?

Officially, nobody knows. The Steam description says their origins remain a mystery. The in-game clues mostly point up. The machines arrived from the sky. Tian Wen notices that Surveyors seem to transmit data back into orbit (Mixed Signals). Shani has watched streaks of light cross the sky that she refuses to believe are natural, and Raiders have long reported strange crates falling from damaged ARC probes.

Those clues sit next to the Exodus Project, whose space-travel infrastructure still stands across the Rust Belt (see the Exodus). Linking ARC to the Exodus is a theory, not established lore, and the ARC origin page goes through the evidence on both sides.

How do ARC machines behave?

ARC patrol. The official overview describes them roaming the surface with lethal force, and a Raider's day is shaped by where those patrols go. Celeste's read on them is simple: ARC have always been drawn to gunfire and commotion. Noise brings machines, and what surprised her at Pendola Pass was the sheer scale of ARC converging on one place.

They also change. Apollo says the ARC are constantly adapting, and that if they want an arms race, they will get one. Shani notes that Bombardiers gave ARC a new way to flush Raiders out of cover, and later admits ARC may be changing but Speranza is finally changing with them. Celeste puts the stakes plainly in A Bad Feeling: even a small shift in ARC behavior could mean catastrophe.

Then there are the signals. Quest text has Speranza intercepting an ARC signal unlike anything it has heard before, with rumors of it putting the whole city on edge. In Live Update 1.45.0, Embark described phantom ARC signals worrying Shani, pointing to a mountain range beyond the Tube network. The Frozen Trail preview says Celeste and Shani finally traced the strange signal ringing across Toledo to Pendola Pass.

From Ticks to Snitches: the small machines

Most ARC a Raider meets are small. They matter in the story less as individuals than as the everyday danger of the surface:

• The Tick waits on ceilings and in dark corners, then jumps onto a Raider passing underneath and drains health and shield until it is pried off.
• The Wasp is a light flying drone that works in swarms. A disoriented swarm once crashed near one of Speranza's skylights, which shows how close the machines get to home.
• The Snitch is a fragile scout. When it spots a Raider it raises the alarm and calls in reinforcements, so a cheap machine can turn a quiet run into a big fight.
• Rollers such as the Pop and the Fireball, plus small turrets mounted inside buildings, make indoor looting tense.

The heavy hitters

Above them sit the machines that change a raid when they show up. The Leaper can jump onto rooftops, so high ground is no refuge. The Bastion locks down an area with a rotary cannon, and the Bombardier is the mobile artillery Shani blames for flushing Raiders out of cover. Others are tied to particular updates or conditions, like the ARC Turbine added in the Riven Tides update and the Assessor that lands during the Close Scrutiny condition.

Speranza's mechanics see the roster as a parts catalog. Apollo jokes that if you cross a Hornet with a Fireball, you get a Firefly.

The Queen and the Matriarch

Before Frozen Trail, the largest machines Raiders fought were the Queen and the Matriarch. The Queen is a huge multi-legged machine tied to the Harvester map condition, where it guards the most valuable loot. The Matriarch has its own condition on Embark's schedule and protects itself with a shield dome that Raiders have to get inside before they can hurt it.

In the story, these used to be the machines you avoided. One Frozen Trail quest giver admits there was a time they would tell you to stay well away from Queens and Matriarchs, and that the luxury is gone. The 2.0 patch also moved their better loot out of the leg armor plates and into the leg pieces underneath.

The Emperor: the giant that fell

Emperors are another scale entirely. Embark's Frozen Trail preview says the reason Raiders are called to Pendola Pass is that one of the Emperors has fallen, and it calls a fallen Emperor unprecedented. Celeste notes that the Emperors were imposing enough from a distance, so Raiders have seen them before, just never this close.

Rare technology lies inside the wreck, and the job is to reach it and find a way in. ARC treat the site the same way. Quest text describes ARC swarming the fallen Emperor like flies on honey, unfamiliar units crawling over the stretch from the Northern Tracks to the wreck, and signals coming from far beyond the Rust Belt. Embark describes the new Hydra, a stationary turret with three stacked sections that each carry a weapon, as the protector of both the Emperor and the Frigate.

Two more machines arrived with Frozen Trail. Embark calls the Bully a machine-learned enemy that charges and refuses to give ground, and the Skulker an opportunist that waits out of sight and strikes from the edge of your vision. Pendola Pass covers the old Italian village and Exodus transport hub around the wreck.

The Frigate: ARC's answer

ARC react fast to the fall. Embark says they are sending one of their largest vessels to patrol the area, and that Raiders have started calling it the Frigate. The launch post adds that the Frigate has arrived to patrol the Rust Belt as well, and it now shows up as a map condition on older maps such as Dam Battlegrounds.

You do not shoot the Frigate down. Raiders board it, work through its interior, unlock paths and sabotage it, while other Raiders compete for the same prize. Celeste's briefing for Boarding the Frigate is blunt: the old tactics fail, and there is no running, hiding or waiting the Frigates out. Another quest warns that if they roam freely, they will hit Toledo sooner or later. The Frozen Trail first look covers the boarding operation in more detail.

Theory: who brought down the Emperor? (theory)

The game raises this question itself, and it has not answered it. The clues so far:

• In the Frozen Trail quest Ruins and Reverberations, the quest giver insists the Emperor did not just trip and fall. It was brought down, and they claim to have a leading theory about how.
• The nomads may have unfinished business there. In Clean Hands, written in the same voice as the Nomadic Envoy's quests, the speaker says a matter at Pendola Pass should have been settled by their own hands, and asks a Raider to do it instead.
• Before Frozen Trail, Shani found a downed machine near the Blue Gate that Speranza did not destroy, and said it went far beyond what a single stray survivor could do.
• The strange signal Celeste and Shani tracked led them to Pendola Pass, where the Emperor lies.

What the clues add up to

Read together, they hint that someone or something other than Speranza can kill very large ARC. That is our interpretation, not established lore, and Embark has not said what Raiders will find inside the Emperor. The ARC Raiders theories page tracks the idea as new quests arrive.

What are the ARC in ARC Raiders?

ARC are hostile machines that rule the surface of the game's future Earth. They fell from the sky in the First Wave, were held off after ten years of fighting in the Rust Belt, and returned to drive survivors underground into Speranza.

Where did the ARC come from in ARC Raiders?

Embark has not said. The official Steam description calls their origins a mystery. In-game clues point to the sky and to orbit. A link between ARC and the Exodus is a theory, not confirmed lore.

What is the biggest ARC machine?

The Emperors and the Frigate are the biggest ARC shown so far. One Emperor lies fallen at Pendola Pass in Frozen Trail, and Embark calls the Frigate one of ARC's largest vessels. Before Frozen Trail, the biggest machines Raiders fought were the Queen and the Matriarch.

What is the Frigate in ARC Raiders?

The Frigate is a huge ARC vessel sent to patrol Pendola Pass after an Emperor fell, and it patrols the Rust Belt as well. Raiders gave it the name. Instead of shooting it down, you board it, push through its interior and sabotage it while competing with other Raiders.