ARC Raiders Lore Timeline: From the Collapse to Frozen Trail

Before ARC: the Collapse and the Exodus

Two things happen generations before anyone in Speranza was born, and they overlap. The world falls apart, and some people leave it.

The Collapse

Embark's official world overview says a global environmental collapse wiped out most of human society and left only a sliver of habitable land. The in-game Codex blames floods, fires and earthquakes working together, and says most evidence of life before the Collapse was destroyed. Buried City, a pre-collapse city half swallowed by sand dunes, is the best look at that world you get Topside.

People did try to stop it. In Shani's quest A Dead End, Raiders dig up an earthquake-resistant housing project from those years that a group called MANTIKOR shut down while others were still trying to stave off the Collapse. The Codex files that work under Project Heartwood, a research program meant to slow or outlast the disaster, and says MANTIKOR cancelled it and redirected the money to the Exodus.

The Exodus

During the Collapse, some people left the planet. The Codex says a handful of survivors escaped on advanced spacecraft and admits nobody now knows how they managed it. The shuttles launched from Acerra Spaceport, the map Raiders call the Spaceport, and its Launch Towers are still visible from miles away.

The departure caused trouble on the ground. Celeste's quest A Wrench in the Works describes resentment reaching the Spaceport's ground staff, with "a mutiny brewing, right in the heart of the Exodus." In Home to Roost, Shani reads old logs about mutinies repressed by MANTIKOR that stop a few weeks before the Exodus. Our Exodus explainer covers who left and what they left behind.

The ARC wars: the First Wave and ARC's return

Celeste and Tian Wen's family lived through this part, and it still shapes the quests they hand out.

Recovery, then machines from the sky

Generations after the Collapse, the official overview says, survivors lived in makeshift communities among old city ruins or in small scattered tribes, and civilization was starting to come back. The Codex calls this hopeful period Sunrise and places a community of settlers around the dormant Alcantara Dam, the dam that Dam Battlegrounds is built around. Then crude machines started falling from the sky.

The First Wave

Survivors in the Rust Belt fought that first ARC invasion for about ten years and barely held it off. The Codex says the settlers around the dam formed the first Raiders, and that First Wave machines were rudimentary enough for them to work out their weak points. Barons, six-legged walkers, were the top of that generation. Shani says in Dormant Barons that they did more damage than all the other machines combined, and their husks still sit where they fell.

Celeste was there. The official overview says a group of Raiders protected her when the invasion began and that she saw the early resistance from the front line. In Straight Record she admits her squad turned an overloaded generator by the Dam into an ARC trap, and in Keeping the Memory she says plainly that they lost a lot of people.

Victory Ridge and a few years of peace

The Codex ends the First Wave at the Battle of Victory Ridge, west of the dam, where scattered Raider groups united under Major Aiva and drove ARC out of the Rust Belt. Aiva died in that battle. She was Tian Wen's mother, which is what The Major's Footlocker is really about. The same entry says the victory broke the unity that won it, as survivors feuded over blame and spoils.

ARC returns

The peace lasted a few years. The official overview says ARC came back as if for revenge, and this time survivors were pushed off the surface into Speranza. The Codex calls the current era the Second Wave and describes its machines as far more refined in tactics and design, to the point that some redesigns counted as new machines entirely. It gives Barons and Queens as the example, which reads as the Queen being what the Baron became.

Speranza and the present day of 2180

The game is set in 2180. Speranza is the underground settlement Raiders return to between trips Topside, and the official overview says Celeste's survival instinct and conviction led to its founding. It became the base of the Raider resistance. The Codex adds that Speranza is the oldest neighborhood of Toledo, a larger underground city of isolated districts, which is why Embark's Frozen Trail preview talks about a signal "ringing across Toledo." More on that in our Speranza lore page.

Life underground is hard. Resources are limited, conflict never stops, and supplies only come from the surface, which is the whole job of a Raider.

The current goal is bigger than surviving. In Back on Top, Tian Wen and Shani start planning new outposts Topside, and Embark has said the long-term aim for Raiders is one day reclaiming the surface.

What each update added to the story

Since launch, every major update has added a piece of history or a new mystery. Here they are in release order.

Launch, October 30, 2025

The game launched with Dam Battlegrounds, Buried City, the Spaceport and Blue Gate. Its early quests set up the eras above and the first running mystery: a signal unlike anything Speranza had picked up before, which Celeste raises in A Bad Feeling and Shani ties to the Surveyors in Mixed Signals.

North Line and Stella Montis, November 2025

North Line arrived on November 13, 2025, and Stella Montis opened once a community event restored the tunnels leading to it. Embark described a facility carved deep into the northern mountains whose ruins "hint at what humanity left behind in its push towards the stars," and noted that some tunnels beneath Speranza had been sealed off with great effort. Stella Montis is where the androids tied to Lance and the researcher records tied to MANTIKOR turn up. The Matriarch and the Shredder arrived with this update.

Cold Snap and Headwinds, winter 2025 to 2026

Cold Snap brought winter to the Rust Belt in December 2025. When Headwinds arrived on January 27, 2026, Embark framed it as the thaw after one of the most punishing winters in recorded Rust Belt history, with some Raiders now hunting ARC for sport.

Shrouded Sky, February 2026

A hurricane hit the Rust Belt so fast that it caught Shani by surprise and put the Tubes at risk of flooding. She set Raiders to work on a weather monitoring system, while rumors spread of new ARC in the fog: the Comet and the Firefly.

Flashpoint, March 2026

Flashpoint, released March 31, 2026, had Celeste's radar flooding with unknown signatures. The ARC Assessor made a controlled landing with ARC patrols Embark called unprecedented, the Vaporizer appeared around it, and Speranza needed resources for a High Gain Antenna.

Riven Tides, April 2026

Riven Tides opened on April 28, 2026, on the western coast of the Rust Belt. Embark says the shore has been abandoned twice, once during the Exodus and again by First Wave survivors who could not hold the exposed settlement against ARC. It holds the Exodus port, the Panorama Azzurro hotel and the floating ARC Turbine. The Riven Tides lore page has the full story.

The Nomadic Envoys, May 2026

Patch 1.29.0 on May 19, 2026 brought the Nomadic Envoys to Speranza after they had long avoided traveling underground. One of them, Ermal, set up camp to trade. With Frozen Trail, the Envoys sent Ermal back on the trail and brought in Cassio, who also gives quests.

Frozen Trail, October 8, 2026

Celeste and Shani traced the strange signal to Pendola Pass, an old Italian village and Exodus transport hub beyond the peaks that surround the Rust Belt. One of ARC's Emperors has fallen there. ARC answered by sending one of its largest vessels, which Raiders call the Frigate, and Celeste offered Raiders an Outpost as a home away from home.

Embark said in May that Frozen Trail would let Raiders begin uncovering what ARC are and where they come from. One of its quests already insists the Emperor did not simply fall. It was brought down.

What the timeline still leaves blank

Some of the questions players ask most have no official answer yet.

• Embark has not published a year for the Collapse, the Exodus or either wave of ARC.
• No quest or Codex entry says where the Exodus ships went, or whether anyone aboard survived.
• Nothing explains why ARC arrived just as survivors were recovering.
• Who built ARC is still a mystery, per the Steam page. Our ARC origin page gathers the clues, and the theories page rates the guesses.

What year does ARC Raiders take place?

2180. Embark's official world overview sets the present day in 2180, many generations after the environmental collapse. It does not give years for the Exodus or either wave of ARC.

Did the Exodus happen before ARC arrived?

Yes. The Codex places the Exodus during the Collapse, and the official overview has ARC falling from the sky generations later. Embark's Riven Tides announcement also lists the Exodus first when it says the coast was abandoned twice.

How long did the First Wave last in ARC Raiders?

About ten years. The official overview says survivors in the Rust Belt fought for a decade to hold off the first ARC invasion. The Codex says it ended at the Battle of Victory Ridge, and ARC returned a few years later.

What is the Second Wave in ARC Raiders?

It is the name the Codex uses for the current era, which began when ARC came back with improved machines and survivors moved underground. The game's present day, 2180, falls inside it.