The Biggest ARC Raiders Lore Theories, Rated by the Evidence

The people who left in the Exodus built ARC (theory)

This is the headline theory. During the Collapse, a few people left Earth on spacecraft. Generations later, machines started arriving from orbit. Put those together and you get ARC as something the Exodus built: to strip Earth's resources for a colony, to prepare the planet for a return, or as a project that slipped out of its makers' hands.

The clue is that both halves are in the game's own text. The Codex says the Exodus survivors left on advanced spacecraft and that ARC is named for how it looks on radar coming in from orbit. Probes carry soil samples back up, and in Mixed Signals Shani notices Surveyors transmitting data to orbit. Something up there wants Earth measured.

We rate it moderate. The pieces fit, and the maps keep putting Exodus ruins and ARC in the same frame. But nothing in the game connects them, and the Exodus Codex describes a handful of escapees whose methods are barely understood, which is a small base for a machine army. The ARC origin page lists every confirmed clue.

ARC came for resources, and the war is a side effect (theory)

Some players think ARC never came to fight people at all. It came to take something out of the ground, and Raiders are simply in the way.

This one has the most direct support. The Codex says ARC has been seen probing the soil in great numbers before harvesting resources, that Probes take soil samples back to orbit, and that nobody knows what they are looking for. The Queen guards the Harvester, which Embark calls a structure with unknown purpose, and the Emperor Beacon item calls in something named Harvester Payloads.

We rate the harvesting half strong, because the game says it. The open part is whether people matter to ARC at all. The Codex says ARC's security forces keep refining their designs as threats change, so Raiders at least register as a problem worth solving.

ARC is a caretaker watching Earth recover (theory)

A gentler version of the resource theory says ARC is maintenance equipment: automated systems sent to monitor the planet's recovery, maybe on behalf of the people who left, with anything that threatens that recovery cleared away.

The clue is timing. The official world overview says the machines started falling from the sky just as civilization was beginning to recover. Probes sample soil and Surveyors log measurements, which is what you would expect from something checking on a planet.

We rate it weak. The same clues fit the resource theory at least as well, and a caretaker is a hard fit for what the Codex says the First Wave did, which was wipe out any semblance of progress and stability. We have not found any in-game text that describes ARC as protective.

MANTIKOR sank the fight against the Collapse to fund the Exodus (theory)

MANTIKOR is the closest thing the lore has to a named villain. The theory says it deliberately killed the research that might have saved Earth so the money could go to getting a few people off it.

The clues stack up. In A Dead End, Shani finds that MANTIKOR shut down an earthquake-resistant housing project while others were still trying to stave off the Collapse. The Codex says MANTIKOR abruptly cancelled Project Heartwood and moved its funding to the Exodus, and that workers later concluded Heartwood had been all but designed to fail. Shani's Home to Roost has logs of MANTIKOR repressing mutinies until a few weeks before the Exodus, and messages from Stella Montis researchers grumble about extra MANTIKOR security in the lobby.

We rate it strong on the facts and weaker on motive. The game says MANTIKOR cancelled the research and put down the mutinies. "Designed to fail" is the workers' conclusion, and nobody has shown who MANTIKOR answered to. Some players go further and tie MANTIKOR to ARC itself. We have found nothing that supports that.

The Exodus only took the privileged (theory)

Plenty of lore videos tell the Exodus as the rich escaping while everyone else was left to die. It is a common version of the story online, and the game neither confirms nor rules it out.

The support is indirect. Quest text describes resentment spreading to the Spaceport's ground staff and a mutiny brewing in the heart of the Exodus. The Codex says workers began doubting the promise of a mass exodus once they learned about Heartwood, and that the mutineers found sympathizers across the Rust Belt, including at the Panorama Azzurro hotel on Riven Tides.

We rate it weak to moderate. Workers clearly felt cheated by something. But the Codex calls the people who escaped a handful of valorous survivors, not an elite, and no text says who chose the passengers. Our Exodus page covers what is confirmed.

Lance came from Stella Montis (theory)

Lance is an android medic, and Embark's trader introduction says amnesia robbed him of his memories of who he was before he arrived in Speranza. The theory is that he was one of the androids built at Stella Montis.

In In My Image, a Raider back from Stella Montis tells Lance she saw others very much like him. Celeste later finds encrypted notes about something called Project Pathos and says the androids there were test subjects as much as assistants. The Project Pathos Empathy Core trinket is a prototype android core said to give androids empathy and self-determination, which describes Lance pretty well. And the quest Empathetic Prototypes opens with someone horrified that they may have kin dangling in a shipment crate.

We rate it moderate to strong. The game keeps steering Lance toward Stella Montis, and he goes looking himself. What is missing is any record that names him or explains how an android from a sealed mountain facility ended up in Speranza with no memory. There is more on him on Lance's page.

Someone brought the Emperor down on purpose (theory)

Frozen Trail's premise is a fallen Emperor at Pendola Pass, something Embark's preview calls unprecedented. The theory is that it did not fall by accident, and that the Nomads had a hand in it.

The first half is close to confirmed. A Frozen Trail quest states that the Emperor did not just trip and fall, it was brought down, and the speaker has a leading theory about how. The Nomad angle comes from earlier lore. The Codex says a nomadic group first spotted at the Blue Gate helped bring down the ARC Deforester and left its husk unusually intact, the same husk Shani wants as a research sample in A Prime Specimen. In Clean Hands, a quest giver says a matter at Pendola Pass should have been settled by their own hands, and The First Nomads compares a sphere found in a bunker to the eerie contraptions the Nomads leave in their wake.

We rate the Nomad link moderate. The game confirms the Emperor was brought down and that the Nomads have downed ARC before. Nobody says they did this one, and the quest that raises the question is holding its answer back.

The strange signal is the Emperor calling ARC (theory)

The signal ringing across Toledo is what sent Raiders to Pendola Pass. One reading is that it comes from the fallen Emperor itself, broadcasting to the rest of ARC.

Embark says Celeste and Shani triangulated the signal to Pendola Pass, where an Emperor is down and ARC is converging like never before. The Emperor Beacon item holds a copy of an Emperor's identifier signal and summons Harvester Payloads when deployed, so Emperors broadcast something ARC listens to. Another Frozen Trail quest picks up signals from far beyond the Rust Belt as ARC swarms the wreck.

We rate it moderate. It explains why ARC converged so fast. The catch is timing: Speranza was hearing a strange signal long before Frozen Trail, back in A Bad Feeling, and Shani tied it to Surveyors sending data to orbit. If it is the Emperor, it was talking well before anyone saw it fall.

What is the most popular ARC Raiders lore theory?

That the people who left Earth in the Exodus built or sent ARC. It is popular because ARC comes from orbit and the Exodus went to space, but no official source connects the two.

Has Embark confirmed where ARC comes from?

No. The Steam page still calls ARC's origins a mystery, and Embark said Frozen Trail lets Raiders begin uncovering it, not that it answers it.

Is Lance from Stella Montis?

The game has not said. Quests show androids very much like him at Stella Montis and a Project Pathos program meant to give androids empathy, which makes it a well-supported theory rather than a fact.

Who brought down the Emperor in ARC Raiders?

Unknown so far. A Frozen Trail quest says the Emperor was brought down rather than falling on its own. The Nomads, who helped bring down the Deforester near the Blue Gate, are the obvious suspects, but nothing confirms it.