Tian Wen in ARC Raiders: The Gunsmith Behind the Bulletproof Door

The reputation: great guns, questionable customer service

The in-game Codex calls her a technical mastermind whose customer service leaves something to be desired. She runs most of her business from behind a bulletproof door in a dark alley off the Piazza, and her firearms are famous in Speranza and beyond. Rumor says she doesn't think much of Raiders, but her trade makes dealing with them unavoidable. Even Celeste, quoted in the same entry, can't remember when Tian Wen arrived. One day she was simply there, behind a deadbolted door, setting up shop.

Her first conversation with a new Raider is a product test. In The Right Tool she hands over an upgraded Ferro that should cut through ARC plating "like butter" and sends you to put holes in a Fireball, a Hornet and a Turret. The next quest, A Better Use, shows what she thinks of Speranza's leadership: "We're short on everything but mouths to feed, yet Celeste's launching precious supplies into the air for Raiders to claw over."

Major Aiva and where the grudge comes from

The Codex explains the chip on her shoulder. Tian Wen was only a girl during the First Wave. Her mother, Major Aiva, was a legendary Raider commander who led countless skirmishes against ARC, and the Codex entry on the Battle of Victory Ridge says scattered Raider groups united under Aiva's leadership to end the First Wave. Aiva died in that battle, and Tian Wen was left devastated and alone.

The years that followed taught her, as the Codex puts it, that a celebrated parent's legacy won't keep you fed, and that the next generation forgets quickly who fought for its safety. That lesson became the foundation of her disdain for Raiders. She frames it in trader terms: her mother died believing in humanity's shared struggle, while Tian Wen believes in fair exchange, and she prices a good gun in cans of preserves or the equivalent in medicine, with no haggling.

The history around her doesn't help. The same Victory Ridge entry says the win shattered Raider unity. Survivors blamed each other for tactical failures, feuded over the spoils and later vandalized the monument built to the battle. The ARC Raiders timeline puts those events in order.

How her quest line turns personal

Tian Wen's quests read like a slow thaw. Here is the arc in roughly the order the quest data chains it.

• After Celeste's Greasing Her Palms sends you scouting salvage sites to win her over, What We Left Behind opens with Tian Wen saying she doesn't appreciate the meddling and has her own reasons for refusing. She still wants the scrap, so she sends you through old Raider camps.
• Broken Monument points you at a First Wave battleground by the Scrap Yard at Dam Battlegrounds. Raiders pick places like that clean, she says. "People forget quickly. Quicker than they should."
• A run of quests from Marked for Death to Industrial Espionage deals with thefts from her drop-off caches in Buried City, a rival dealer from Toledo and a bug planted on the competition's weapon cache. Her dialogue lets slip that the drop-offs aren't exactly sanctioned by Celeste.
• Unexpected Initiative has her setting up a greenhouse to boost food production, then insisting, "I'm doing Celeste a solid, alright? That's all."
• The Major's Footlocker drops the act. "It's.. about my mom," she begins, and admits she sent you to all those First Wave sites hoping you'd find something of her mother's. This time she has a real lead, and you recover Major Aiva's mementos from the apartments northwest of the Dam.
• In Back on Top she sounds almost cheerful. Shani asked for her help setting up new outposts Topside, and for once she's actually glad.

The side business

The Codex says Tian Wen keeps a quiet hand in Toledo's black market, where many of her more experimental weapons curiously turn up, and suggests Shani looks the other way for now because so many Raiders depend on her supplies. Armored Transports shows the market from her side: rare pieces started appearing there once the tunnels reached Blue Gate, "meanwhile, I'm stuck here peddling battered old Rattlers."

Her newer quests are deals and debts. In Outstanding Balance, a Raider called Dodger goes quiet on a Bastion Cell he promised her. In Settled in Full she asks you for a real cell, "pulled from a real Bastion," and moves what Dodger owed her onto your credit, which makes the Bastion your problem. Stable Housing takes a client's job to open a pre-Exodus safe in Stella Montis, and Collision Course wants Comets brought down before they detonate so the parts survive. Snap and Salvage sums up her attitude to the big mysteries: "Let the others sort out the whats and hows; I'm interested in the tech inside."

Tian Wen after Frozen Trail

Embark's Frozen Trail announcements don't give Tian Wen a confirmed role in the Pendola Pass story. The 2.0 patch notes change her shop instead. She no longer sells the Anvil and Hullcracker, which move into the weekly Nomadic Envoys rotation, and the Launcher Ammo and Energy Clips she stocks now have daily purchase limits. Current stock is on the traders page.

Tian Wen and the other traders

Celeste is the relationship that drives her story. Celeste pushes, Tian Wen resists, and by the greenhouse quest she's helping while claiming it means nothing. Celeste's page covers the other side, including the fact that Celeste fought as a teenager at Victory Ridge, where Aiva died. The game hasn't said whether the two women have ever talked about it.

Her Codex line about Lance may be the most Tian Wen thing in the game. She has come across similar android models before, rarely, but none that spoke or carried themselves like him, and she'd love to know what wires got crossed in his head. Then she adds that he'd fetch a fortune on the black market, but you didn't hear that from her. With Shani she shares the outpost project, along with Shani's apparent tolerance of her side deals.

Is Tian Wen a man or a woman in ARC Raiders?

Tian Wen is a woman. Embark's official Meet the Traders post refers to her as she and her, and her own quests talk about her mother, Major Aiva.

Who is Tian Wen's mother?

Major Aiva, a First Wave Raider commander. The in-game Codex says Aiva united the scattered Raider groups at the Battle of Victory Ridge and died there. In The Major's Footlocker you recover her mementos for Tian Wen.

Why does Tian Wen dislike Raiders?

After her mother died, Tian Wen learned that a famous parent's legacy didn't feed her and that people quickly forgot who fought for them. The Codex calls that lesson the foundation of her disdain for Raiders.

What does Tian Wen sell?

Weapons, ammo and attachments. Since 2.0 the Anvil and Hullcracker are sold through the Nomadic Envoys rotation instead, and Launcher Ammo and Energy Clips have daily limits.